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THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 











THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 
MOSTLY IN FOLLOWING HIS AUTHORS 
IN AMERICA & EUROPE 


BY 


JOSEPH PENNELL 
N. A. 
DBEEEOW FOPSTHE AMERT 
CAN ACADEMY OF ARTS 
AND LETTERS - MEMBER 
iN AGO INTUSUNS TILU TE 
ARTS AND LETTERS - MEM 
BER NATIONAL ACADEMY 
OF DESIGN -: HONORARY 
ASSOCIATE ROYAL BELGIAN 
BOADEMY “HONORARY 
ASSOCIATE OF ROYALINSTI 
LUTE OF BRITISH ARCHI 
LEGS = HONORARY ASSO 
CIATE OF AMERICAN IN 
SITLIUTE OF ARCHITECTS 





PeopeistikHD BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
THIRTY-FOUR BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS IN THE YEAR 1925 





PRINTED IN THE Unitep STATEs OF AMERICA 
av THE Printinc Housr or Wirt1am Epwin Rupes, Inc. 
New Yorx Crry 


a, 





DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO 
E 


ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL 


WHO HAS ADVENTURED WITH 
ME FOR FORTY YEARS 





\ Re eS 
s ie 








THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR PREFACE 






i 
A 


THE BETHLEHEM STEEL WORKS - WASH DRAWING 1881 - DRAWN FOR THE ARTICLE ON THE 


MORAVIANS IN THE CENTURY BUT NOT USED + FIRST IMPORTANT WONDER OF WORK DRAWING 


HIs book is the outcome of a suggestion, made to me twenty-five or thirty 
years ago by the late Charles F. Chichester of the original Century Company, 
that I should do a volume for them, containing some of my drawings which 
had appeared in their Magazine with notes by myself. The result is far different, 
and I hope far better, than the first scheme, and the book is due to Mr. Alfred R. 
McIntyre of Messrs. Little, Brown and Company, who have carried it out, and Dr. R. 
U. Johnson, who suggested it to them, though in the meantime chapters had been 
printed anda number of publishers had asked for the Volume. 
S CARCE any of the artists, engravers, authors, editors and printers with whom I 
worked are alive in this country, and few of those with whom I was associated in 
Europe. But there are several persons whom I must specially thank for their aid: Mrs.A. 
W. Drake, Mr. John F. Braun, Mr. H. Devitt Welsh and Messrs. Frederick Keppel and 
Company in this country, and Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, Sir Frederick and Lady Macmillan 
in England. I have acknowledged the sourceand permission to use thedrawings either in 
the text or List of Illustrations. But Imost sincerely thank the artists, authors, editors 
and publishers who have helped me. Once again Mrs. Pennell has read my proofs and, 
more than this, she has gone over them again and again with me. 
AP HE books Mrs. Pennell and I have written and illustrated, and our adventures in 
making them, are not here described, because they have already been published. 


{ VII | 


VII THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR - PREFACE 


ome of the chapters were printed in Tur Century, Tue ILtustrateD LonDoN News, 
S Tur New York Tes, Toe Booxman, but all have been rewritten and revised. The 
book is finished, but the making of it has been still another and a great Adventure. 
BROOKLYN, OcTOBER IsT, 1925. IosEpH PENNELL 







yen 
Pay Artic a wow S 


ow 
f Ty 


} 114, 

Seat PA te Ales 
he 1 ii ae ph 
IRL 9 ihe a lh 

Se eee 


= ~ lena ay ATS 
f AE fii Race 
7 x 





THE ARNO NEAR EMPOLI : PEN DRAWING 1884 - FROM TWO PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS - LONGMANS 


soma — 


eed 


THE ADVENTURES OF AN 












ILLUSTRATOR : TABLE OF CONTENTS 





TOLEDO FROM MONOCHROME OIL PAINTING - 1894 * ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN WASHINGTON 


IRVING’S ALHAMBRA WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MRS. E. R. PENNELL - MACMILLAN & CO. 


PREFACE 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

CHAPTER I THE BEGINNING 

CHAPTER II AT THE COPES’ OFFICE 

CHAPTER III FRIENDS’ SCHOOL IN GERMANTOWN 
CHAPTER IV AT THE INDUSTRIAL ART SCHOOL 
CHAPTER V IN THE ACADEMY SCHOOL 

CHAPTER VI THE FIRST COMMISSION FOR THE CENTURY 


CHAPTER VII IN AND OUT OF THE PHILADELPHIA STUDIO . 


CHAPTER VIII THE START FOR THE SOUTH . 

CHAPTER IX WITH CABLE IN NEW ORLEANS 

CHAPTER X THE JOURNEY TO EUROPE 

CHAPTER XI FLORENTINE DAYS WITH HOWELLS 

CHAPTER XII SIENA AND SOME OTHER TOWNS 

CHAPTER XIII A LITTLE JOURNEY WITH THREE LADIES 
CHAPTER XIV THE HOME OF CRISTOFO COLOMBO 

CHAPTER XV SAN GIMIGNANO 

CHAPTER XVI IN VENICE WITH BUNCE AND DUVENECK 
CHAPTER XVII BACK TO LONDON AND ON TO EDINBURGH 


CHAPTER XVIII OUR CYCLING JOURNEYS IN ENGLAND AND ITALY 


CHAPTER XIX SHAW AND SOME OTHERS 
CHAPTER XX THE ENGLISH CATHEDRALS 
CHAPTER XXI HAMERTON AND THE SAONE 
CHAPTER XXII THE LONDON CITY COMPANTES 
CHAPTER XXIII THE FRENCH CATHEDRALS . 


- CHAPTER XXIV BEARDSLEY AND THE YELLOW BOOK 


LIX} 


X 


CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 


XXV GETTING INTO RUSSIA 

XXVI THROWN OUT OF RUSSIA 

XXVII WHISTLER 

XXVIII ILLUSTRATED DAILY JOURNALISM 
XXIX HENRY JAMES 

XXX MAURICE HEWLETT - THE ROAD IN TUSCANY 
XXXI MARION CRAWFORD AND VENICE 
XXXII KING EDWARD'S FUNERAL 

XXXIII KING GEORGE S CORONATION 

XXXIV GETTING ARRESTED 

XXXV WORK IN THE YEARS 1912 AND 1913 
XXXVI THE OUTBREAK OF WAR IN GERMANY 
XXXVII WAR WORK IN ENGLAND 

XXXVIII IN FRANCE IN WAR 

XXXIX AT THE FRONT IN FRANCE 

XL THE RETURN IN WAR TIMES 

XLI THE END OF MY ADVENTURES 


BOOKS ILLUSTRATED AND WRITTEN BY JOSEPH PENNELL 


INDEX 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


els 
230 
aod, 
247 
258 
268 
280 
290 
3,00 
our 
332 
Ee 
326 
349 
346 
354 
358 
363 
365 





OLD MILLION EYES - COAL BREAKER AT MAHANOY CITY PENNSYLVANIA * LITHOGRAPH 1908 


THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR: LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 












































































































































































































































































































































































































































THE FORD 1884 + WASH DRAWING ENGRAVED ON WOOD BY EVANS FOR CENTURY WAR SERIES 


ALL ILLUSTRATIONS OF WHICH THE AUTHORSHIP OR OWNERSHIP IS NOT STATED 
ARE BY ORIN THE POSSESSION OF JOSEPH PENNELL. THE REPRODUCTIONS, UNLESS 
OTHERWISE STATED, HAVE BEEN MADE BY THE BECK ENGRAVING COMPANY 


PORTRAIT OF JOSEPH PENNELL : End Paper 
From the medallion by John Flanagan, A.N.A. , by permission of the attist, 1920. 


PORTRAIT OF JOSEPH PENNELL ; End Paper 
From the relief by Dr. R. Tait Mackenzie, by permission of the artist, 1918. 


PORTRAIT OF JOSEPH PENNELL : . Frontispiece 
By William Strang, R.A., colored chalk ey 1903. 


J. AND E. R. PENNELL : . Vv 
Pen drawing, Our Journey To THE Hesripgs, T. Fisher Unwin. Redeaen for this book. 
(Dedication page, top.) 


J- AND E. R. PENNELL : . ° Vv 
Pen drawing, Two Piterims’ Procress, Longmans. Redrawn for this book. 


(Dedication page, bottom.) 


THE BETHLEHEM STEEL WORKS : ; ‘ VII 
Wash drawing, 1881. (Preface.) 

THE ARNO NEAR EMPOLI - 4 é c Vill 
Pen drawing, 1884. (Preface. 

TOLEDO . Ix 


Monochrome oil, 1894, from Washington Irving’: s ALHAMBRA. (Table of Contents. Ny 


[XI] 


XII THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


OLD MILLION EYES 

Lithograph, 1908. (Table of Contents. ) 

THE FORD . 

Wash drawing, 1884. (List of Illustrations. ) 

BUILDING THE BISMARCK ; 

Lithograph, July, 1914. (List of Illustrations.) 

JOSEPH PENNELL, 1863 

From a daguerreotype, reproduced by the Walker Engraving Company. 
JOSEPH PENNELL, 1863 

From a daguerreotype, reproduced by the Walker Engraving Company. 
MARTHA C. BARTON 

From a silhouette, reproduced by the Walker Engraving Company. 

A SAMPLER MADE BY MARTHA C. BARTON, 1825 

Reproduced by the Electro-Light Engraving Company. 
PHILADELPHIA WATER WORKS 

Lithograph, 1912, unpublished. 

ILLUSTRATION FOR AN UNWRITTEN STORY, 1865 

Pencil Bae: reproduced by the Walker Engraving Company. 
FRIENDS’ MEETING HOUSE - 

Lithograph, 1908, Our Puitapetpuia, J. B. Lippincott Company. 

THE COPE BROTHERS 

From the painting by S. B. Waugh (a copy), in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine 
Arts, reproduced by the Electro-Light Engraving Company, by permission of the 
Directors. 

LARKIN PENNELL 

From a daguerreotype by McClees and Germon, reproduced by the Walker En graving 
Company. 

PENCIL DRAWING MADE AT AGE OF SIx, 1866 

Reproduced by the Walker Engraving Company. 

FRIENDS’ ALMS HOUSES 7 

Pen drawing, 1882, from the original made for Hanns! s WEEKLY. 

THE CLASS OF SEVENTY-SIX AT FRIENDS’ SCHOOL 

Photograph by D. Hinkle loaned by Mrs. Phebe E. Howell Haines. 


GERMANTOWN MEETING 

Pencil drawing, 1873. 

JAMES R. LAMBDIN 

Portrait by the artist in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, by permission of 
the Directors. 

PRIZE PENCIL DRAWING, 1873 

MAIN STREET, GERMANTOWN 

Lithograph, 1908, Our Puitapetpuia, J. B. Lippincott Company. 

COAL WHARF 

Pencil drawing, 1879, reproduced by the Electro- Light Engraving Company. 
BRIDGE NEAR DOWNINGTOWN 

First lithograph, 1877. 

COAL BREAKER, WILKES-BARRE 

Lithograph, 1917, in the Library of Congress, Washington. 


x 


XI 


XXII 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


PROFESSOR CHARLES MARQUEDANT BURNS 5 3 3 
From the painting by Wayman Adams, A.N.A., 1917, by permission of the artist, 
reproduced by the Electro-Light Engraving Company. 


STUDIES 
Pencil drawings, 1879, at Penasylyania School of Industrial ALE: 


NOTICE OF EXPULSION FROM THE SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL ART 


PORTRAIT OF JOHN 
Pencil drawing, 1878, made at the Reading Coal and Iron Company’ s Office. 


OLD MILL, GERMAN TOWN 
Etching, 1880. 


THOMAS EAKINS, N. A. 
Diploma portrait i: the artist in the National Academy of Design, New York, by per- 
mission of the Council. 


PLOW INN YARD 
Etching, 1881. 


JOSEPH PENNELL CAPTAIN OF THE GERMANTOWN BICYCLE CLUB 
Pen drawing, 1881, from a letter to L. Pennell. 


AN OIL REFINERY 

Wash drawing, 1880, engraved onwood byJ.F. Jungling, ‘A Day in the Mash,’ ry 
NER'’S MaGazinE, July 1881, page 346, by permission of the Century Company 

THE EDITORS OF THE CENTURY 

From the painting by Orlando Rouland, by permission of the artist. 

R. W. GILDER. 

Bust by the Comte de Rosales in ae American Academy of Arts abd Letters, by per- 
mission of the Board of Directors. 


A.W. DRAKE . 
From the portrait by John C. Johanson, N.A. one permission of aie artist. 


R.U. JOHNSON 
From the painting by W. M. Chase, N.A., by permission of Dr. R.U. Johnson. 


MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN 4 

From the painting by E. L. Ipsen, N.A., by permission of their Majesties the King and 
Queen of Denmark, and of the artist. 

THE BROTHERS’ AND SISTERS’ HOUSES A 5 
Wash drawing, 1881, engraved on wood,'‘A Colonial Monastery,’’ Scr1BNER’s MaGa- 
ZINE, December 1881, page 209, by permission of the Century Company. 

A SPRING DAY : A 
Pen drawing, 1882, reproduced by process, “Visiting the Gypsies,’’ TaECEntTury, April 
1883, page 908, by permission of the Century Company. 


CHARLES GODFREY LELAND . 
Etching by Felix Bracquemond, from the proof in the New York Public Library. 


THE LAST OF THE SCAFFOLDING 

Etching, 1881, reproduced by the Gill Engraving Company. 

VENICE 

Pen drawing, 1881, from the painting by Ds Martin Rico in the Gibson Collection, 
Philadelphia. 


BRIDGE AT HARRISBURG ; 
Etching, 1881, reproduced by the Gill Engraving Company. 


XII 


7O 


ie 


73 
75 


78 


Ye. 


XIV THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


VIEW IN WASHINGTON 
Pen drawing, 1881. 


CALLOWHILL STREET BRIDGE. 
Etching, 1881, loaned by the American Art Association, reproduced by the Gill Es 
graving Company. 


CHRISTMAS DAY 
Pen drawing, 1881. 


SKETCHES IN COURT 
Pencil drawing, 1881. 


SKETCH FROM THE TRAIN 
Pen drawing, 1921. 


A DECK HAND é 
Wash drawing, 1882, engraved on 1 wood, unsigned, ‘The Voyage of the Mark Twain,” 
Tur Century, February 1883, page 800, by permission of the Century Company. 


OLD NEW ORLEANS 
Wash drawing, 1882, engraved on iad by J. F. Jungling, Cable’s Creole articles, Tar 
Century, 1883, page 397, by permission of the Century Company. 


G. W.CABLE . 
Monochrome by Abbott H. Thayer, NVA. aa the American Academy of Arts and 
Letters, by permission of the Board of Directors. 


FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM CABLE 
By permission of the late G. W. Cable. 


A FULL RIVER 
Pencil drawing, 1882, engraved on n wood by W.R. Powell, Cable’s Creole articles, Tay 
Century, July 1883, page 425, by permission of the Century Company. 


W.D. HOWELLS AND MISS MILDRED HOWELLS 
From the relief by Augustus St.Gaudens owned by the Howells family, by permission 
of Mrs. St. Gaudens. 


THE PONTE VECCHIO, FLORENCE 
Etching, 1883, from the trial proof in the collection of Mr. John F. Braun, reproduced 
by the Gill Engraving Company. 


ON THE ARNO 
Etching, 1883, from the proof in the New York Public Library, reproduced by the Gill 
Engraving Company. 


THE SWING OF THE ARNO, PISA 
Etching, 1883, engraved on wood by R.G, Collins, Howells’ article, THE Cunraaa 
October 1885, page 894, by permission of the Century Company. 


TIMOTHY COLE 
Portrait by his son, diploma work in the National ‘Academy of Desi; gn, by permission 


of the Council. 


W.D. HOWELLS 
Chalk drawing byMiss Wilfrid M. Evans in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ; 
by permission of the Board of Directors. 


SKYSCRAPERS, FLORENCE ° - 5 
Etching, 1883, engraved on wood by R. C. Collins, Howells’ *“Tuscan Cities,’ THe 
Century, April 1885, page 805, by permission of the Century Company. 


83 


85 


86 
87 
go 
gt 


93 


95 


ei 


I0O 


IOI 


103 


108 


109 


IIz 


115 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


HARBOR, LEGHORN ° “ 
Etching, 1883, engraved on wood by R.C. Collins, Howells’ ‘Tuscan Cities,’’ Toe 
Century, 1885, page 893, by permission of the Century Company. 


PISA FROM THE LUCCA ROAD . 
Pen drawing, 1900, Maurice Hewlett’s Tux Roan’ In Tuscany, Macmillan and Com- 
pany, 1904. From the drawing in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 


UP AND DOWN IN SIENA 
Etching, 1883, engraved on wood, unsigned, Howells’ article, THE Cmvruny, August 
1885, page 545, by permission of the Century Company. 


THE PIAZZA, PISTOIA 

Etching, 1883. 

SKETCH FROM MEMORY 

Pen and ink, 1883, froma letter to Miss Robins. 

DUCAL URBINO 

Etching, oe 

THE DEVIL S BRIDGE 

Charcoal drawing, 1901, THE Roap IN TUSCANY. From the drawing in aie Uffizi Cee 


BARGA - 

Charcoal drawing, 1901, THE Roap IN TUSCANY. From the drawing in the Uffizi Gallery. 
VOLTERRA 

Pen sketch, 1900. 

SAN GIMIGNANO 

Pen sketch, 1900. 

GATEWAY, SAN GIMIGNANO . 

Etching, 1883, reproduced by the Gill Engraving Company. 

SAN GIMIGNANO FROM THE FIELDS . S 
Etching, 1883, engraved on wood by J. F. Jungling, Howells’ ‘Tuscan Cities,’’ by per- 
mission of the Century Company. 

CANAL, VENICE 

Pen drawing, 1882, copy from D. Martin Rico. 

REBUILDING THE CAMPANILE, VENICE 

Lithograph, 1911, published as a poster by the City of Venice. 

FRANK DUVENECK 

From the diploma portrait by Julius Rolshoven in the National Academy of Design, 
by permission of the Council. 

W.GEDNEY BUNCE 

From the pen drawing by Walter Shirlaw, loaned by Signor Paone. 

MORNING ON THE RIVA SCHIAVONI 

Pen sketch, 1883, from a letter to Miss Robins. 

SIR EDMUND GOSSE 

From the portrait by J. S. Sargent, Nae AR aA by] permission of Sir Edmund Gosse. 
LONDON IN 1883 

Wash drawing, engraved on ood by Cestate, Fenty James’ article on London, Tee 
Century, by permission of the Century Company. 

ANDREW LANG 

From the portrait by Sir W. B. Richmond, K.C.B. ,R.A., by permission of the Exec- 
utors of Andrew Lang. 


XV 


IIg 


1ipH) 


I21 


XVI THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


OLD EDINBURGH 
Wash drawing, 1883, engraved « on wood, uasigned, THE Conroe January, 1884, 
page 325, by permission of the Century Company. 


CYCLING IN FRANCE 
Pen drawing, 1885, Our Smyrmaarrat JOURNEY, Longmans, Green and Company, 1886. 


ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL . 

Pen drawing, 1885. 

ANCIENT MEDIZVAL AND MODERN ROME 

Pen drawing, 1894, Mrs. Oliphant’s Taz Makers or Rome, from the original in the 
National Gallery, Melbourne, Australia. 


ELIHU VEDDER 
From the colored chalk deawine by Frank peice owned by the Come Club, = 
York, by permission of the Club. 


THE WEST GATE ‘ 
Pen drawing,1884,A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE, Seeley and Company, from the drawin g. 


IN BLOOMSBURY - 
Pen drawing, 1885, Our SmwrimenTat JOURNEY, from the drawing. 


GEORGE BERNARD SHAW e 
Photographed by himself, and reproduced by his permission. 


BEDFORD PLACE, BLOOMSBURY 
Etching, 1890, from the collection of Mr. John F. Brann, 


THE TEA TOWER 
Mezzotint, 1902. 


WILLIAM HEINEMANN 

From a photograph. 

J: BERTRAM LIPPINCOTT ; 

From the painting by Julian Story, by permission ‘of Mr. Lippincott. 


T. FISHER UNWIN 
From the portrait by J. McLure Hamilton, by permission of Mr. Unwin. 


SIR FREDERICK MACMILLAN . 
From a photograph loaned by The Macmillan Company. 


GEORGE MOORE 
From the pen drawing by Walter Sickert, A.R. re 


PHIL MAY . 
From the portrait by Sir J. J. Shannon, R.A., by permission of Tony Shannon. 


WALTER CRANE 
From the portrait by G. F. Watts, O.M., R.A., by permission of Mrs. Watts 


W.E. HENLEY 
From the bust by A. Rodin in the Crypt of St. Paal’ s Cathedral, by permission of the 
Dean and Chapter. 


GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL 

Wash drawing, 1887, engraved on wood, uasigned, Enarins Caraemnars by Mrs. Van 
Rensselaer, by permission of The Century Company. 

MRS. SCHUYLER VAN RENSSELAER 

From the relief by Augustus St. Gaudens owned by Mrs. Van Rensselaer now in the 
Metropolitan Museum New York, by permission of Mrs. St. Gaudens. 


15 


153 
154 
155 


P7 


168 


170 


bo 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


LINCOLN i 
Wash drawing, 1886, engraved on n wood by Henry Wolf, ENGLIsH Cees by per- 
mission of The Century Company. 


ST. PAUL’S 
Charcoal drawing, 1905, ENouee Hours by Henry James, William Peinemang: 


ELY 
Pen drawing, 1885 , ENGLISH Cayetonars by permission of The Century Company. 


ST. PAUL’S WHARF 

Pen drawing, 1884, THE Dartyoito: 

THE BOUSSEMROUM 

Pen drawing, 1886, Tue Saénz, A SUMMER vores Seeley and Company. 


PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON 
From the portrait by Robert J. Wickenden one by the artist. 


THE RIVER DURGEON 

Pen drawing, 1886, published in "Tue Sadnt. 

A HOUSE AT ORMOY 

Pen drawing, 1886, THE Sabnn, 

STATIONERS’ HALL, LONDON . 

Pen drawing, 1900, By permission of The American Type Founders Company. 


CLOTH FAIR 
Charcoal drawing, 1904, Lonnon by Sidney Dark, ‘Macmillan and Company. 


STREET DOOR, BREWERS’ HALL 
Pen drawing, 1888. 

GIRDLERS’ HALL 

Pen drawing, 1887. 

BREWERS HALL 

Pen drawing, 1888. 


SIR WILLIAM TRELOAR 
From the painting by Tennyson Cole, by permission of the Corporation of the City of 
London, and B. Kettle, Esq., Librarian of the Guild Hall. 


ROUEN FROM BON SECOURS 

Etching, 1900. 

LE PUY 

Etching, 1890, from the collection of Mrs. W. H. Fox 


E. AND HELEN AT LAON 
Pen drawing, 1893. 


MONT ST. MICHEL 

Pen drawing, 1900, in the icembour 2 Gallery, FRencn Cirandes The Century 
Company. 

DOORWAY, ST. TROPHIME,. ARLES 

Pen drawing, 1890, in the Luxembourg Gallery, Heenee Cee 


TRANSEPT AT ROUEN : 
Lithograph, 1895, Highways AnD Byways oF Normanpy, by the Rey. Percy Derr 
man, Macmillan and Company. 


A CHIMERA OF NOTRE DAME . 
Pen drawing, 1893, THe Paty Mati GazettE. 


XVII 


201 


203 
205 
207 


208 


209 


2 


pd 92, 


XVIII THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


REGENT'S QUADRANT 
Pen drawing, 1895, published in the first number of Tae Savoy. 


THE DEVIL OF NOTRE DAME . 
Etching, 1893, from the proof in the collection of Mrs. W. H. Fox. 


A DEVIL OF NOTRE DAME : 
Caricature of Joseph Pennell by Aubrey Beardsley, pen drayite: Tue Pay Mace 
Bupcet, 1893, by permission of the late John Lane. 


AUBREY BEARDSLEY 
From the painting by Jacques Blanche in the National Portrait Gallery, London, by 
permission of the Trustees. 


STREET IN BRODY 
Pen drawing, 1891, THE JEw AT e Flee: W. Heinemann. 


A GENTLEMAN OF BRODY ° 
Pen drawing, 1891, Taz Jew at Home, owned by Mr. Poultney Bi gelow. 


MARKET AT BRODY 
Pen drawing, 1891, THE Jew aT Home, 


IN THE PARK, BRODY 
Pen drawing, 1891, THE JEw aT Home. 


EVENING SERVICE IN A SYNAGOGUE, BERDITCHEV 
Pen drawing, 1891, owned by Mr. D. S. MacColl, THE JEw AT Hom. 


THE MARKET, KIEV, JEWS AND RUSSIANS BARGAINING 
Pen drawing, 1891, THE Jew aT Home. 


THE RUSSIAN SCHUBE 
Lithograph by J. McN. Whistler, Pennell Collection, Library of Gonpress: 


JOSEPH PENNELL 
Lithograph by J. McN. Whistler, Pennell Collection, Library of Congress. 


J. McN. WHISTLER 
From the portrait by Jean Boldini i in the Brooklyn Museum of Science and Art, by per- 
mission of the Trustees. 


FIRELIGHT NO. 2 
Lithograph by J. McN. Whistler, Pennell Collection, Library of Congress. 


FIRELIGHT NO. I 
Lithograph by J. McN. Whistler, National Academy of Design, by: permission of the 
Council. 


WHISTLER’S APARTMENT, IIO RUE DU BAC 
Charcoal sketch, 1923. 


TURNER'S HOUSE ON THE THAMES 
Pen drawing, 1884, in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, Dr. B.E. Martin’: s 
Oxp Cuexsga, T. Fisher Unwin. 


OLD CHEYNE WALK, CHELSEA . 
Wash drawing, 1884, OLp CuHELsEa. 


THE UNREFORMED LODGING HOUSE 
Pen drawing by A. S. Hartrick, R.W.S., Tue Darty CHRONICLE, rB95 


LONDON EAST END GROCERY. 
Pen sketch by Phil May, 1895. 


213 
218 


219 


Noli. 


2-43 
245 


747 
248 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


THE BALLET COSTUME 
Pen drawing by Aubrey Beardsley, among the destroyed drawings in ihe Pennell Col 
lection, Taz Dairy Curonictz, 1895. 


THE ART EDITOR AT WORK, JOSEPH PENNELL 
Portrait painted by J. McLure Hamilton, 1909. 


THE STONE BREAKER 
Pen drawing by E. J. Sullivan, R.W. S., THE Darzy CHRONICLE, r89s, 


GAILLARD CUT 
Lithograph, 1912, Toe New Yorx Times. 


BUILDING HELL GATE BRIDGE 

Chalk drawing, 1912, THe New York Times. 

CHOIR OF SAN JUAN DE LOS REYES 

Charcoal drawing, 1903, John Hay’s Cast1L1AN Days, W. Heinemann. 


THE TAGUS AT TOLEDO 

Charcoal drawing, Castit1an Days. 

CIVITA VECCHIA 

Pen drawing, 1905, Henry James: Irat1an Days, W. Heinemann. 

HENRY JAMES. 
From the portrait by J. S. Sargent, N.A., R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery, 
London, by permission of the Trustees. 


THE FOUNTAIN AT NIMES 

Wash drawing, 1900, James’ Lirrte Tour in FRANCE, W. Heinemann. 

CHARING CROSS STATION 

Wash drawing, 1888, engraved on wood, unsigned, James’ article on London, Tae 
Century Macazinz, by permission of the Century Company. 

THE BRIDGE AT LUDLOW 

Charcoal drawing, 1905, Encuisn Hours. 

MENDING NETS AT MARTIGUES 

Pen drawing, 1890. 

THE ROAD FROM THE ALPS TO ITALY 

Charcoal drawing, 1901. 

SIR FREDERICK MACMILLAN . 

From the painting by Sir Hubert Von Herkomer, R.A. , by permission of Sir Frederick 
and Lady Macmillan. 

FLORENCE 

Charcoal drawing, 1901, THE ives IN TUSCANY, Macmillan and Company, 1904, now in 
the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 

MAURICE HEWLETT 

From the painting by the Hon. John Collier, by permission of the family of the late 
Maurice Hewlett. 

CASTIGLIONE DEL LAGO 5 

Charcoal drawing, 1901, Tue Roap 1n Tuscany, now in the Uffizi Gallery. 

THE HALL OF THE GLOBES, DOGE *S PALACE, VENICE 

Charcoal drawing, 1901, Greaninas FROM VENETIAN History by F. Marion Crawford, 
Macmillan and Company. 

F. MARION CRAWFORD 

Pastel by C. M. Ross, by permission of Macmillan and Company. 


XIX 
249 


251 
252 
sae) 
755 
256 
27 
258 
oy 
262 


2.63 


266 
267 
268 


270 


273 


277 


a) 


280 


281 


XX THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


CAMPIELLO DELLE ANCORE 
Pen drawing, 1901, GLEANINGS FROM VENETIAN Fisroxy, 


THE BUSY LITTLE CANAL 

Pen drawing, 1902. 

THE HARBOR, GENOA 

Lithograph, 1gor. 

BUILDING THE WOOLWORTH . 

Lithograph, 1902. 

BUCKINGHAM PALACE THE NIGHT EDWARD VII DIED 

Charcoal drawing, 1910, THe InLustrateED Lonpon News, May 1910. 


EDWARD VII . 
From the painting by Bastien Lepage, by permission of Ad Braun aad Company. 


PREPARING WESTMINSTER HALL FOR THE LYING IN STATE OF EDWARD VII 
Charcoal drawing, 1910, Tue ILLustraTED Lonpon News. 


THE KING S COFFIN IN WESTMINSTER HALL 

Lithograph, 1910, THe Darty CHRONICLE. 

WHITEHALL, PARLIAMENT STREET UP WHICH THE FUNERAL PASSED 
Etching, 1911. 

THE FUNERAL PROCESSION 

Pen drawing, 1910, THe Times. 

GEORGE V IN HIS CORONATION ROBES 

From the painting by C. R. Sims, R.A., by permission Of FLAS Judd Company. 
CORONATION OF GEORGE V 

Lithograph, 1911, Tue Dairy CHRONICLE. 

WHITEHALL, PARLIAMENT STREET PREPARED FOR THE CORONATION 
Lithograph, 1911, THe Datty CHRONICLE. 


JOSEPH PENNELL 


A caricature by Wyncie King, pen and wash drawing, Tue New Your Times, from the 


original drawing owned by Mr. F. S. Bigelow. 
GUN DIPPING SHOP, BETHLEHEM 


Lithograph, 1917, JosEpH PENNELL’s PicTUREs OF Wan Work IN Aseatca, J.B. Lippin- 


cott Company. 

CAMBRIA STEEL WORKS, JOHNSTOWN 

Chalk drawing, 1917. 

STORM IN THE GRAND CANYON 

Lithograph, 1912. 

NIGHT IN THE YOSEMITE 

Lithograph, 1912. 

TEMPLE OF JUPITER, EVENING, ATHENS 

Lithograph, 1913, JosEPH PENNELL’ SIN THE Lanp oF Temp tgs, W. Heinemann. 
GOING HOME TO THE BAA LAAM 

Lithograph, 1913. 

THE VOSSISCHE ZEITUNG 

Extra issued in Berlin June 28, 1914, announcing the murders at Serajevo. 


NEW RAILROAD BRIDGE, COLOGNE 
Pencil sketch, June 1914. 


283 
287 
288 
289 
291 
a7) 
1) 
297 
298 
ie ee) 
301 
Bid? 
310 


411 


Bit. 


318 
320 
321 
320, 
328 
324 


34%) 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


JOSEPH PENNELL PRINTING AT THE PAN PRESS, BERLIN JULY 1914 
Dry point by Professor Paul Von Hermann, owned by Mr. W. H. Fox. 


GRAIN ELEVATOR, HAMBURG HARBOR 
Lithograph, 1914, also used as a poster by the Leicester Galleries at an Exhibition of 
German War Work, London, 1917. 


ZEPPELIN SHED, LEIPZIG 

Lithograph, 1914. 

SEARCHLIGHTS BEHIND ST. PAUL'S, LONDON . 

Lithograph, 1914, drawn from Adelphi Terrace House. 

TWO PAGES FROM JOSEPH PENNELL 'S IDENTITY BOOK ISSUED BY THE METRO- 
POLITAN (LONDON) POLICE, 1916 


SEARCHLIGHTS OVER CHARING CROSS 
Lithograph, 1914, drawn from Adelphi Terrace Horse. 


AT THE FOOT OF THE FURNACE 
Lithograph, 1916, War Museum, London, Joszpx ieee quae s Prerunes or War Work IN 
ENGLAND, W. Heinemann. 


TURNING THE BIG GUN 
Lithograph, 1916, Print Room, British Museum, Josten PENNELL’S Digvenees OF War 
Work IN ENGLAND. 


H. G. WELLS 
Chalk drawing by Professor W. Rothenstein, by permission of the artist. 


PRESSING SHELLS, MUNITION FACTORY, LEEDS 
Pencil sketch, 1916. 


THE IRON GATE, CHARLEROI . 
Lithograph, 1907. 

THE LAKE OF FIRE, CHARLEROI 
Lithograph, 1907. 


SOISSONS IN 1922 
Water color owned by The Brooklyn Museum of Science and Art, by permission of tie 
Trustees. 


FRENCH GOVERNMENT PERMIT TO VISIT VERDUN 
Letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 


DAILY PERMIT ISSUED AT VERDUN 

SCHNEIDER'S GUN FACTORY, CREUSOT 

Etching, 1911. 

PERMIT TO SKETCH IN THE CATHEDRAL, VERDUN 


THE SINEWS OF WAR 
Lithograph, 1917, used as Liberey Loan poster. 


JOSEPH PENNELL 
From the painting by Wayman Adams i in the Chicago Art Tnsticuce, by permission of 
the artist. 


THE PROW A 
Lithograph, 1917. 


THE GARDEN OF THE GENERALIFE 
Pen drawing, 1895. 


XXI 
326 


ee 


328 
329 
330 
331 
333 


354 


335 


357 
Si 
ope 
343 


344 


545 


346 
349 


353 
Boa 


ahs 


356 


357 


XXII THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


HAIL AMERICA , ‘ : 358 
Mezzotint, 1908. 

JOSEPH PENNELL : 3 359 
Drawing by W. Oberhardt, by permission of the a artist, 1917. 

J. AND E. R. PENNELL AT THEIR BROOKLYN WINDOW : : 361 
From the painting by Wayman Adams, by permission of the artist, 1923. 

FINISHED. : : 362 
Pen drawing, 1896, from a letter to Mr. David Keppel. 

THE BRIDGE AT MOSTAR : : : : 3,63 
Pen drawing. (Books Illustrated.) 

UNDER THE BRIDGES, CHICAGO : ‘ : 364 
Charcoal drawing, 1908. (Books Llustrated.) 

GYPSIES 365 


Pen drawing, 1891, To GyrsrLann, drawing in the British Museum, Cindex.)) 


LOXA : ; 372. 
Oil Monochrome, 1894, THE AraaMond: (index. _ 





BUILDING THE BISMARCK » HAMBURG HARBOR ° JULY 1914 * LITHOGRAPH PRINTED IN BERLIN 





CHAPTER ONE THE BEGINNING 


IOSEPH PENNELL IS BORN - LEARNS TO READ - COMMENCES 
TO DRAW - REMEMBERS THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG - THE 
FALL OF RICHMOND AND SEES THE FUNERAL OF LINCOLN 





JOSEPH PENNELL » AGED ABOUT THREE: FROM 
A DAGUERREOTYPE TAKEN IN PHILADELPHIA 


was born in Philadelphia, I have 

been told, Seventh Month, which the 

world’s people call July, and the 

Friends Seventh Month, Fourth. Ido 
not knowtheyear, formymemory doesnot 
go back, like the Provengal’s, to the mo- 
ment when the nurse said, “‘Madame, it 
is a boy!’’ And I have never tried to find 
out, and I do not know if there is any way 
of finding out. The date may have been in 
the books of Orange Street Friends’ Meet- 
ing, to which we belonged, Ia birthright 
member; but the Meeting House is gone; 
I have no idea where the records are, and 
the family Bible, with the date written 
in, went in the War. Anyway, the date 
does not matter, so I have always put it 
down as 1860. I am not sure even that 


my birthday was the Fourth of July; but 
I like to think so, for it makes me feel I 
am a real American, one of the last of my 
race, a race that is passing away. 
fee nothing of my ancestors, good 
ot bad; but they must have been God- 
fearing, law-abiding people or I should 
have heard of them. All I know is, that 
my Aunt Mary, on my father’s side, hada 
pedigree which started with a Sir Robert 
Pennell who, the document said, came to 
Philadelphia with William Penn on his 
second voyage, in 1685. But I never could 
discover the date of Penn’s second visit, 
and I might have forgotten the 1685 if I 
had not illuminated a copy; but that is 
gone, too; went in the War. And I cannot 
imagine how a Sir Robert found himself 


cle ven 
uu 





JOSEPH PENNELL: AGED ABOUT THREE » FROM 
ANOTHER PORTRAIT TAKEN AT THE SAME TIME 


{ 1860 } 


2 CHAPTER I- THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


among Friends. There was on the docu- 
ment, at the top, an eagle or some other 
heraldic fowl, and a shield below, both 
of which I colored to suit myself, and at 
the bottom a scroll to hold the family 
motto, but the motto was missing, and I 
rather think the whole was manufac- 
tured by one of those traveling genealo- 
gists who went round the country telling 
likely people that titles and fortunes 
awaited the families to whom they were 
shown, in Europe, and that these titles 
and fortunes could easily be obtained if 
the heirs would only advance enough 
money to the genealogist to take him 
back and wrest from the wrongful appro- 
priators the family fortune, name and 
fame, but especially the fortune. 

sHOULD always believe this family coat 
ee arms to be a myth—I could easily, 
during my years in London, have cleared 
it up bya visit to the Herald’s College— 
if it were not that the name of Pennell, so 
Lam told, appears in the earliest Phila- 
delphia title deeds and surveys of the 
future city; that we were among the cave 
dwellers, the early settlers or diggers, 
under Front or Water Street hill; and 
that the deeds show the family owned a 
whole square of land as late as 1840—for 
I have seen the plan at the Philadelphia 
Free Library—almost all the square be- 
tween Spruce and Pine and Eleventh and 
Twelfth, the most respectable in the city, 
now given over, one side to McCalls 
and McMurtries and Wisters—and from 
r110 Spruce, owned by the Robins, I was 
married—and the other side and the alleys, 
now the prey of niggers and boarding 
houses. I often get letters, and once in 
a while visits, from people of the same 
name—there is none, I believe, but mine 
in the Philadelphia Blue Book—and they 
always want something. One day a man 
appeared in London and he said, “I knew 


your father; he was a Philadelphian and 
worked on THE Lepcer;’’ and I answered, 
“T never had a father. I never heard of 
Philadelphia. What’s Tuer LrepcEer?” 
And I used to get invitations to family 
reunions with Evanses and Larkins and 
Pennells and Smedleys, and then requests 
to subscribe to family histories; but as I 
did not accept them, I have been dropped, 
or the gatherings have ceased, or the 
books are out of print. I might, in this 
way, have learned all about my people, 
but I did not. Only the other day a book- 
seller offered me some of the volumes, 
with the genealogy and crests of the Pen- 
nells in them. While we were in England, 
my father made inquiries in Lincoln, 
where we spent one summer, and in Corn- 
wall, where we passed another. In the 
cathedral town there were many Pennells, 
but instead of being knights, they were 
grocers and florists. And I do not know 
what he found in Cornwall, save the 
legend current in that country: 
‘*By Pol, Tre and Pen 
Ye may know the Cornish men.” 

I do not know the names of my grand- 
parents. My father’s mother, whom I 
alone remember, was only “‘Grandma.” 
But I had her photograph, which also 
went in the wicked War. How she, a real 
Friend, allowed it to be made, I have 
always wondered. I do remember her 
well, best that I saw her, long after she 
was dead, through the open door, sitting 
quietly in the bedroom, where she slept 
when she came to stay with us, and as I 
ran in to talk to her, she faded away. The 
first things I remember happened at her 
home, three miles from Marcus Hook, or 
Linwood Station, in Delaware County, 
Pennsylvania, where some of the Pennells 
emigrated, buying land and selling their 
Philadelphia property probably for less 
than pottage. There she lived with my 


[1863 } 


ARTS PATRONIZED BY FRIENDS 


MY AUNT MARTHA BARTON S SILHOUETTE AND HER SAMPLER + 


Kee 





4 CHAPTER I - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Uncle Nathan, her son, and his family, in 
a double, stone, rough-cast farmhouse, 
with great trees in front, near the road, 
and acres in every direction as far as the 
hills—only one farmhand’s house, and 
further off, the Meeting House, where we 
went, at the crossroads, in sight, and the 
big wooden barn and the cool spring 
house, and the cold ice house near by. 
REMEMBER one day I had been put out 
it in the shade, all alone, to play with 
little turtles that wandered in the grass— 
and it was fun to turn them on their backs 
or tap them on their shells and watch them 
draw in their heads and legs instead of 
running away—and as I played, from be- 
hind the hills, down the road, came boom, 
boom, boom; and the next thing I remem- 
ber I was looking from the train we fled 
to Philadelphia in, at men high on the 
banks on each side the tracks near Gray's 
Ferry, piling up earthworks and digging 
rifle pits—I see them still, figures work- 
ing, dark against the sky. The next morn- 
ing some one opened our front door—and 
I was there—and the white marble steps 
were red with blood. And these are all 
- the memories I have of rebel raiders, the 
blowing up of Dupont’s powder mills and 
the battle of Gettysburg. Then there was 
a day when my father came home and 
said that he had not been drafted because 
he was just over age, but that, asa Friend, 
he would not have gone to the war, nor 
would any other Friend. Friends are not 
conscript cowards but real resisters of 
useless wars, and if the world’s people 
only had their courage, there would be no 
warts. And I have been told of earlier 
things, but they are all mixed up vaguely 
with later ones: with meeting rebel 
prisoners, filthy and horrible, who fright- 
ened me, and regiments of Union soldiers 
marching to the South, and a white hos- 
pital downtown, and the Sanitary Fair in 


Logan Square. And so my first memories 
were of war, and my last will be of war 
and the wreck of the world I loved. 
re told I was born in a little house 
down Ninth Street. My father, after hay- 
ing been a teacher at Westtown, Friends’ 
Boarding School—he was born on my 
grandfather's farm—had come back to 
Philadelphia and gone into Cope Brothers’ 
office. And my mother’s family, the Bar- 
tons, aunts and cousins, had moved toa 
house on Fourth Street near Pine, from 
the farm in Jersey. This, [have heard, was 
turned into a vineyard, and I know their 
cupboards held good sherry and port and 
brandy, a little of which they drank ‘for 
their stomachs’ sake’, as the Bible bid 
them. The other aunts and uncles and 
cousins—Woods and Evanses, all correct 
—lived on Front and Second and Union 
and Pine and Arch Streets. They had come 
in again to the city from Moorestown 
and Mount Holly and Haddonfield and 
Cooper's Point, all correct, too. But the 
ridiculous Philadelphia snobbishness 
among the world’s people was already 
beginning, and even Friends gave in to it, 
and they were leaving their beautiful old 
Colonial houses for the suburbs. When 
my father was married, instead of staying 
downtown, where at least he could have 
made some money had he bought a house, 
he took one on South Ninth Street near 
Shippen, opposite to Rollinson’s Ceme- 
tery, one in a row of two-story houses 
with attics, I learnt when I went there 
not long ago to look for it. But I do not 
know which house it was, for they do not 
usually put plaques on houses in Phila- 
delphia—they pull them down, if they 
are beautiful and old, or let them to the 
mongrels who have overrun the city; or 
the up-to-date architects ruin them, as 
they have all our Philadelphia. And one 
day, when I was regretting all this, a 


{ 1863 | 


THE BEGINNING - HIS FAMILY AND HIS FRIENDS 5 


Friend, whose house was decorated with 
the pillars that held up Orange Street 
Meeting House gallery before it was des- 
troyed, said: ‘‘Joseph, thee dont realize 
thee belongs to the oldest and most ex- 


clusive club in the world—Philadelphia - 


Friends’ Meeting—and that thees a birth- 
right member.’’ But another day, when 
I was drawing Twelfth Street Meeting 
House, another Friend said to me, “‘Joseph, 
dont thee think it would be a good thing 
to pull down the Meeting House and 
builda store like Wanamaker’s?’’—which 
looms behind it. ‘‘Robert,’’ said I to him, 
“T think thee is an awful vandal.” 
Th np was a neighbor, Annie Wallace, 
next door on Ninth Street, who used 
to read Grimm and Hawthorne to me, and 
my two aunts, Mary and Beulah Barton, 
lived on Tenth Street. They sat, in their 
white muslin caps, and handkerchiefs 
over their gray dresses, in the back par- 
lor all the afternoon, knitting mittens 
and making caps, and later we would go 
downstairs to the basement dining room 
and, after we had kept silence, they would 
give me the only tea I ever liked, and 
muffins, and little pieces of ginger out of 
a blue and white jar with straw handles, 
and I could look up and see the big back 
yard with a wood fence round it, and a 
railing on top of which cats walked, and 
roses in the grass plots on each side the 
brick walks. In the evenings the aunts 
sat at the front parlor windows, one at 
each, to see neighbor this or neighbor 
that go by. And the upstairs rooms were 
filled with beautiful Chippendale and 
wonderful Sheraton, which their people 
had brought from England long before. 
What I liked most was to see the little 
tables opened out, one within the other, 
and to explore the mysteries of the great 
wardrobe. Sometimes they shut me up in 
it, and it smelled so good when I hid 


among the clothes. There were secret 
drawers of desks I tried to find; and I 
never tired of lifting the brass handles of 
bureaus and letting them fall with a de- 
lightful ring. All told against the white 
walls of the rooms, though some had 
pictured paper. In the front parlor were 
horsehair chairs and sofas, and at the 
sale of Aunt Mary’s things, when she 
died, my father bought them—they were, 
I suppose, the fashton—and the Chippen- 
dale went probably for nothing. Still, I 
liked to slide on the curved sofas and pick 
long hairs out of the seats of the chairs, 
which were put in our parlor. 

y LovE for the Rollo books, which 
M filled my head with a longing for 
travel and made a restless rover of me, I 
owe to my cousins, the Evanses, Hannah 
and Elizabeth. Like Aunt Mary and Aunt 
Beulah, they seemed to me to sit all day 
long with their mother against white 
walls and white marble mantel-pieces, 
knitting or sewing or reading, in plain 
dress, white caps, white handkerchiefs 
over their shoulders and crossed on their 
breasts, gray gowns, and sometimes black 
aprons: perfect compositions, never 
painted, all-sone. Later, I tried to get © 
Howells to write of them, Whistler to 
paint them. One said he could not write 
the plain language, the other said he 
would like to come home and paint them, 
but never did. And so, plain Friends, with 
other beautiful things in Philadelphia, 
have gone, mostly leaving no record save 
with those of us who knew and saw. 
When my Aunt Martha Barton, who had 
been a teacher at Westtown, spent a sum- 
mer with us in London, I ought to have 
had Whistler paint her, for she was a per- 
fect type of Philadelphia woman Friend, 
in face, figure and dress, and when she 
would come back from some excursion in 
the city, she would say, ‘‘Really, Ido not 


{ 1863 | 


6 CHAPTER I: THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


know why people look at me so!"" But 
she wore the plain dress, plainer than 
English Friends’ clothes. 
aly uz Evanses’ house was onUnion Street 
and the back looked out on a garden 
which ran to Pine Street, and the gar- 
den looked to the spire of old St. Peter's, 
and through the stillness came, with the 
hours, morning and afternoon, the sound 
of bells and chimes brought from Eng- 
land or Holland before the Revolution, 
so sweet that now I can scarce bear to 
hear them in a Flemish town or an 
_ English village. There is a bell in Brook- 
lyn that brings it all sweetly and sadly 
back. And these chimes had much to do 
with making me, the little Quaker, draw 
churches, ‘steeple houses’, in which so 
much of my life, the best of my life, has 
been passed. I drew St. Peter's before I 
went to England. Somehow, I was born 
with a love of beauty, a love that most 
people know nothing of, care nothing 
for, especially if they can make money by 
destroying it, or restoring it. 

y father,as another investment—I do 
M not know if he madeanything out of 
selling the first—bought a house on Lom- 
bard Street near Ninth, and John Wana- 
maker lived next door and I used to play 
with Tommy and Rodman. And there 
was friend Levion the other side, and out 
of our back building dining-room win- 
dows, over the fence between, we could 
see him having tea with his hat on. Of 
course, my father ought to have realized 
that Lombard Street was altogether out 
of, if next to, Philadelphia. I suppose he 
thought it would be taken in and im- 
proved; but it ran down. Still, he should 
not have forgotten that Philadelphia in 
his day was bounded by “Chestnut, Wal- 
nut, Spruce and Pine’’, and that Lombard 
was and always will be outside, though 
now any new Philadelphian rich enough 


to buy or advertise his way in, is “‘one of 
us.’ It was a big, three-story house my 
father bought, with a side and back yard 
and a verandah on the second story. It 
looked between the Marises’ and the 
Eisenburys’ houses on Pine Street, which 
had side yards, over the alley, right on to 
the statue of William Penn in front of the 
Hospital on Pine Street. Every evening 
at six the Hospital bell rang for dinner, 
and, then, if we were only in the right 
spot, at the right moment, we would see 
William Penn, when he heard it, come 
down off his pedestal and go in to dinner 
with the Hospital doctors who passed 
the open door. I tried over and over for 
the right spot and the right time, and I 
am sure there was not one other small boy 
or girl who lived in that neighborhood 
who did not too, and we never gave up 
hope of seeing him come down and go in. 
This was a good Philadelphia tradition, 
believed in by good Philadelphians. And 
it is something to be able to say I was born 
in the city, ifonly toadd it is a good place 
to get away from later. 

nE Marises’ father had a big ware- 

house filled with cinnamonand ginger 
and liquorice and John the Baptist beans, 
and everything that smelt good and tasted 
good; and once in a while we boys would 
go down to the store on Market Street 
and steal all the good-eating and sweet- 
smelling things we could—and howsmells 
and tastes come back! Every once in a 
while I get the real American smell. You 
only get it among Eastern Americans and 
it has never been noticed; but in all old 
houses, in old woods in the fall, when the 
leaves on the ground are burnt, it fills me 
with a longing—a longing for that life 
and those times, gone forever. The Ameri- 
can smell is as strong as the London smell, 
the French smell, or the smell of Italy. 
But the stink and the filth of the low 


[1864 | 


sngegena 





PHILADELPHIA WATER WORKS + MOST BEAUTIFUL ARCHITECTURAL COMPOSITION IN AMERICA 
DESTROYED TO BUILD AN ART GALLERY + WHERE MY FATHER TOOK ME : LITHOGRAPH I giz 


ip —_ Ss eT | 


ye 





THE BEGINNING - HIS SCHOOL AND HIS DRAWINGS 9 


mongrels who have driven the Americans 
out of the country have driven out the 
American smell with all else American. 
7, Saas was another wonderful place, 
the Dispensary opposite Independence 
Square on Fifth Street. Doctor Morris’ 
son and J were at the Boys’ Select School 
together, the only boy I remember there. 
In the Dispensary, too, were smells of 
drugs downstairs, and upstairsa collection 
of coins which we were allowed to look at 
and which I always wanted to steal. I 
once stole a counterfeit dollar out of my 
father’s drawer and spent it on fireworks. 
What a lot we got with it. And there 
was a big yard behind the Dispensary, 
with dirt walks, or dirt in it, and water. 
There was a hydrant, and we built mud 
towns and dug oceans and all sorts of 
wonderful things. The Philadelphia hy- 
drant was wonderful, too. You drank out 
of the spout, but you waited first for the 
mud to clear and then to see if a fish or 
water snake came next. And that is why 
Philadelphians of my generation are so 
healthy. If you could stand Schuylkill 
water, you could stand anything. I was 
told one day not so long ago a report on 
the water was to be made. The engineer 
stated first, that all Philadelphians drank 
their ancestors buried on Laurel Hill, 
which was drained into the Schuylkill, 
and that at a point farther up there was 
“an excellent outcrop of sewage.’ The 
last bit of Philadelphia vandalism is the 
destruction of the Dispensary, and I alone 
protested or called attention to the crime. 
MosTLy played with girls. Boys did not 

I amuse me, for I was not strong. I had 
every sort of ailment and got stunned by 
lightning in the back yard and could not 
bear thunder for years without my nerves 
going to pieces; and nearly hung myself 
on ropes run through swinging rings on 
the verandah, and broke my right arm— 


that is why lam ambidextrous—and went 
half blind, and the boys called me‘ ‘Skinny 
Pennell’, and once, in winter, the girls in 
their Select School on Sixth Street madea 
slide with a bump in the middle and we 
boys went down there, and as I slid I fell 
and broke my nose; and that is why it has 
a hump on it till this day. And I would 
jump when from the alley I heard a yell 
“The hominy man’s about today’’, or a 
statement you could hear all over the 
square that ‘‘prunes were good for the in- 
sides’’; but the most awful of old Phila- 
delphia cries was that of the nigger 
mammy sitting at night ina black corner 
who shricked as we passed ‘‘Crabs!’’ 
A tu the while I had something of my 
own, for I made drawings and they 
and my toys were real. [loved my drawing 
and my toys better than anything or any- 
body. Iwasa solitary little Quaker but I 
was not lonely. I was less lonely when 
alone. I was always drawing. A year or 
so ago I turned out from an old port- 
folio bound in figured paper that lace was 
kept in, dozens and dozens of sheets of 
illustrations of the lives and adventures 
of a soldier. There was a story connect- 
ed with them which I have forgotten, 
and the designs, mostly in water colors 
and colored chalk, had not the slightest 
merit, save a curious composition and 
some character. I was not even a Cubist; 
so I destroyed all I could find. The story 
was never written—I told it to myself. 
I-used to draw it. Only the story got 
mixed in my dreams with a great brazen 
figure that stood in our cellar, and I had 
to go down there at midnight alone, and 
then it would begin slowly to rock—fur- 
ther and further, back and forth—and as 
I knew ina minute the figure must fall on 
me, I would wake screaming. But I have 
never told any one of it until now. I was 
too afraid of the statue to tell and, night 


[1864 ] 


IO CHAPTER I - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


after night, it tottered and tottered above 
me and as it fell I woke; and my mother 
and father always wondered what fright- 
ened me; but I was too afraid of the statue 
to tell them anything about it. 
+uer illustrations of those old days— 
for I was an illustrator from the be- 


ginning—were made in a large, yellow, 


oblong, blank cheque book of the Bank of 
Pennsylvania. There were three cheques 
on a page, and the paper was Chinese and 
the back of it was stunning for water 
colors, but most were in pencil. There 
were also water colors by my father in it 
—copies of beasts made from shects of 
colored lithographs we had. He showed 
me how to grind the colors in the tiny 
saucers and put them on, though these 
copies, so far as I know, were his only 
works of art. But in this, as in so many 
other things, he was my first teacher, 
although I cannot say how or where he 
learned enough to teach me—perhaps at 
Westtown. Nor can I say when I had my 
lessons. It was most likely in the early 
evening before tea—that Philadelphia tea 
with hot soda biscuits and oysters and 
preserves my mother put up or my grand- 
mother sent us. There was seldom time in 
the morning, for my father went to mar- 
ket once or twice a week, carrying his big 
basket, as was then the Philadelphia 
fashion; or we used to exercise with hang- 
ing rings on the verandah, covered with 
wistaria in the spring and in the fall with 
grapes. Sometimes he took me with him 
to market. We would go down to Second 
Street Market in the Lombard Street horse 
car, and there, in the dark tunnel of the 
market house, was my Uncle Nathan ina 
plain, broad-brim top hat—he was an 
Elder or Overseer of Meeting—and a white 
apron, selling over his stall butter and 
eggs and chickens, which he had brought 
into town from his farm. And Friends 


Joseph and Thomas Elkington would 
come over to talk to him from their soap 
works across the street, where they made 
their ‘White Familys’ Soap.’’ Iwas some- 
times taken to play with the Elkington 
boys who went to Select School. And 
there were Evanses, who came from their 
paint shop up the street and gossiped with 
my uncle; and when my father had filled 
his basket and bought other baskets of 
peaches or kettles of oysters to be sent 
home, he carried his basket full of good 
things and I followed, to the South or 
Pine Street car. And this all good Phila- 
delphians did every week and were not 
ashamed. And my father would take me 
walking on First Day afternoons to Penn 
Square, or on Seventh Day to Fairmount, 
in the horse cars to the water works, the 
most beautiful, the most romantic spot in 
America, all destroyed by villainous van- 
dals, to make an Art Gallery by killing 
art, and against this abomination I only 
could get Agnes Repplier to protest. The 
up-to-date Philadelphian is not only a 
vulgarian but a coward, or most are. 
I + wasmy father who, with my mother, 
taught me to read. I do not remember 
what I read, save that ‘‘Little Ann and 
her mother went walking one day’’, and 
Soncs For INNocENTS AT Home, and we 
had an illustrated Aesop, and the rare 
New England Primer. It was then I be- 
came almost blind over what I read and 
drew, and I had to be kept ina dark room 
for months; and I cannot stand strong 
light now. Aftermy eyes got well enough, 
I was sent to Friends’ Select Boys’ School 
in Cherry Street above Eighth. Teacher 
Susannah House, who taught the Primary 
School, would come to get me in the 
morning—she lived somewhere near us— 
and take me with her and bring me back 
home after school was over. On Fifth 
Day morning, Isaac Morgan, the Princi- 


[1864 } 


THE BEGINNING - GOING TO SCHOOL AND TO MEETING 


pal, used to march us all down to Arch 
Street Meeting House, two by two, in our 
coats with the collars cut off behind, and 


II 


cousin Elizabeth Evans among the women 
ministers. A man I took to the Meeting 
House a little while ago said he had never 





: ae 
i * . >, a 
ie OE 6 60 7 


eee 


AMBIDEXTROUS 


how are thee?’’ We spent an awful hour 
and a half on the hard wooden benches, 
and our legs went to sleep because our 
feet did not reach the floor; but if we 
went to sleep, Isaac Morgan, who sat on 
a side bench, leaned over and shook us, 
and the boys who sat behind stuck pins 
in the toes of their shoes and jabbed us. 
Even then I loved the big beautiful room, 
and the ministers, men and women, who 
sat on the top benches, facing the meet- 
ing, the men on one side, the women on 
the other—so peacefully, so quietly—my 





Aisa 


ILLUSTRATION MADE ABOUT FOUR OR FIVE FOR AN UNWRITTEN STORY : 


been so near to God on earth before. 








SIE i a sacaeascanine 
tg Se ab ; 








I WAS ALREADY 


SEE LETTERING OF SIGNS ON THE BUILDINGS READING BOTH WAYS 


HEN we went to school on Seventh 

\¢ Day, we would put our books under 
our coats and button them up to hide 
them from the boys who did not have to 
go and who laughed at us more than ever 
and shied bricks, too. At Christmas, a 
Committeeman would come and tell us 
we must be at school on the Twenty-fifth 
of Twelfth Month, just as we would any 
other day, and not to keep the world’s 
people’s holiday called Christmas at 
home. But very few of us did come to 
school on that day. We were told, too, 


{1865 | 


12 


that we should give thanks every day and 
not on one day in the year only; that we 
were Friends and not as the world’s peo- 
ple, who believe in times and seasons and 
other worldly customs. 
I REMEMBER nothing of this first school 
so well as the day when there came 
something over the whole city and all the 
teachers and the boys left the classes, the 
littlest and the biggest, and ran down 
into the brick-paved school yard, and 
then all rushed through the front gate, 
save me, for I was grabbed by Teacher 
Susannah. The firemen were out with 
hose catriages on which were burning 
brooms, and the streets were filled with 
people yelling and running to the State 
House, and I wanted to run too; but J was 
carried off home, though I tried hard to 
get away. And a few days after my father 





CHAPTER I - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


came back from market and brought with 
him the paper all in black; and soon after 
that I was taken to the house of Captain 
Julius, of Copes’ Packets, on South Broad 
Street, next door to the house where the 
Robins lived later on, and the house had 
a balcony, not a verandah, on the second 
story front; and we sat out there; and 
away up and down Broad Street was a 
waving line of shining steel in the sun- 
light, and afterwards a great black hearse 
stopped under the trees in front of the 
house, and everybody cried. 

us is all I remember of Gettysburg, 

of the fall of Richmond, of the assas- 
sination of Lincoln, of the war; but noth- 
ing of it all can I forget. What I saw and 
heard then, I remember. I was an artist 
from the beginning, for I looked at and 
remembered things as an illustrator. 


Mog 





FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE FOURTH AND ARCH WHERE THE SCHOOL WENT TO 
FIFTH DAY MORNING MEETING «+ LITHOGRAPH 1908 OUR PHILADELPHIA 


[1865 } 


CHAPTER II: AT THE COPES OFFICE - DRAWING AND 
PLAYING IN THE OLD SHIPPING OFFICE - MEETING THE 
COPE CHILDREN - THE END OF THE AMERICAN PASSENGER 





THE ORIGINAL COPE BROTHERS - FROM A PAINTING BY S.B.WAUGH WHICH HUNG IN THEIR 


AND MERCHANDISE SAILING SHIPS AND OF THE OFFICE 


OFFICE - REPRODUCED FROM A COPY IN THE PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS 


T WALNUT Street Wharf was 
Copes’ office—the firm of Cope 
Brothers who owned the four 
great packet ships that sailed to 
Liverpool from Philadelphia. And here 
was my father, and here I was taken to 
play by my father. The office was in the 
second story. On the ground floor were 
ship stores, and you went through an iron 
door on the street, upa narrow stair with 
a rope banister, to the second story, where 
there were four rooms. In the first was 


my father with clerks under him. Then 
there was an inner room where it seemed 
to me, little boy, the Copes never were. 
When they did come, and I was there, I 
was scared. Either Thomas P. in plain 
clothes would walk in solemnly, or Fran- 
cis R. in world dress would rush in reck- 
lessly. They never came together; and 
they never seemed to do anything when 
they got there, but when they were there 
I was frightened; why, I do not know. 
Theirs was a corner room looking down 


{ 1865 | 


14 CHAPTER II - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Delaware Avenue and across the river, 
and both ways were wharves, and their 
ships were tied up to the wharf oppo- 
site Copes’ Wharf. Another front room, 
rarely used, had in it a double high desk, 
with drawers instead of legs; and one 
drawer, like that in my father’s desk, 
always had pretzels or crackers in it, and 
I used to pull it open and help myself. 
KS the desks were high stools which 
could be pushed to the windows, from 
the top of one I could look out on the 
ships and Camden Ferry and Smith's 
Island, and perched on the stool at the 
window, I drew the ships—the Tusca- 
rora, Tonawanda, Saranac, Wyoming— 
and the ship Captains would come in 
and look at my drawings. But neither 
they, nor the Copes, nor any one else, did 
more than look; no anxious patron for 
my future encouraged or refreshed me 
with cash or with praise, or even wanted 
the drawings asa gift. I dont think even 
my father said anything, but he gave me 
pencils and paper. Art was not upon the 
town; the American collector was not in- 
vented; the West-Peale tradition was for- 
gotten in Philadelphia, Abbey was forced 
from his home, and, besides, Friends did 
not approve of drawings. These drawings 
—illustrations—were made because I 
wanted to make them. I could not help 
it. And, mostly, the people who saw 
them did not like them, mostly did not 
understand them. Only my father must 
have cared or he would have stopped me. 
All these went in the War. From the win- 
dow of the corner office Icould look down 
Delaware Avenue on the Camdenand Am- 
boy Railroad Depot, and the Hotel with 
menalways tilted back on chairs in a row 
in front of it; and the attempt to draw the 
street and the buildings and the people, as 
Isaw them from above, gave me the man- 
nerism, which I encourage, of looking 


down on subjects I draw to-day. I didnot 
get it from the Japanese, for [never sawa 
Jap print until about 1880, when I bought 
Hokusai’s Hundred Views at Wanama- 
ker’s for a quarter, in the original edi- 
tion—that went in the War—because 
Drake of Tue Century told me to get it, 
and found our view point the same. But 
my liking for elevated view points came 
from looking out of Copes’ office windows 
years before. Some of the Captains, who 
had made trips to China and Japan, may 
have had prints, as they had lacquer and 
cabinets in their houses, but they never 
showed any to me, for I never saw any of 
these things unless they were away—going 
to or coming from Liverpool—though 
I went to Captain Baker’s and Captain 
Dunlevey’s to play with their children, 
for they lived in our square. 

F I tired of drawing or staring out of 

the windows, I could do a still more 
wonderful thing—look into a camera 
lucida which was in the desk, at the life 
of the streets, and from this I learned a 
great deal—maybe too much—or from a 
kaleidoscope—what a treasure for the ists 
and the artless—or from a stereoscope at 
home, which had foreign views. Some- 
times I was allowed,asa great favor, to go 
out through glass doors in the front of the 
office, on to a grated, iron-railed balcony. 
On each floor, one above the other, the 
balconies ran up to the gable-ended roof, 
a trap door in each, through which goods 
could be hauled to the upper lofts by a 
crane at the top. The gable end of the 
building, as in Holland, was on Delaware 
Avenue, and it was built, as so many 
Philadelphia houses were, of Dutch red 
and black bricks. In the big room with 
the desks was a great safe—another won- 
der—with wondrous locks, and my father 
had the key, and over this, on the plain 
white wall, was an oil painting—one of 


{ 1866 | 





ee | 


; £4 
.* 
*) 
i 
ms 





s He : i i \ 
i 2 2 ils 


MY FATHER LARKIN PENNELL 1819-1 890 - FROM A DAGUERREOTYPE BY MCCLEES AND GERMON 
TAKEN WHILE HE WAS IN COPES OFFICE AT WALNUT STREET WHARF - IT IS INTER- 
ESTING TO CONTRAST THESE REAL AMERICAN TYPES WITH PORTRAITS OF AMERICANS OF THE 
SAME CLASS TO-DAY - BOTH ARE CLEAN SHAVEN BUT THE MEN OF THE PAST HAD CHARACTER 
WHICH SHOWED IN THEIR FACES » THOSE OF THE PRESENT DAY ARE STANDARDIZED AS CAN 
BE SEEN IN THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPERS FROM THE PAGES OF WHICH THEY GRIN AND SMIRK 


16 CHAPTER II - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


the first I ever saw—of the three original 
CopeBrothers. Howtheseworthy Friends 
allowed themselves to be painted by 
Waugh and engraved by Sartain in mezzo- 
tint I do not know. Silhouettes and sam- 
plers were the only forms of art, with wax 
fruit and flowers and real shells, and 
sometimes daguerreotypes in their black 
cases, to be seen in Friends’ houses. We 
had at home a painting of Fort Snelling 
and some water colors of ships, kept out 
of sight, and a lot of illustrated books— 
Captain Cook’s Voyages and a History 
of the Pirates and one of the Ameri- 
can Navy among them, in a big box 
in the attic. One day I tore the engrav- 
ings from the books and painted them. 
Luckily, my father caught me and proved 
to me so painfully and clearly that I 
should leave the works of my predeces- 
sors alone, that I have mostly done so to 
this day, no matter what I think of them. 
Not so long ago, I had another attack, 
and it too had disastrous results. Even 
to-day it is hard to restrain myself from 
destroying the new art and the new liter- 
ature—the admiration of the new Ameri- 
cans; but to do that would be to turn 
Bolshevik—as they are. Something else 
that comes back to me as I write is the 
smell of these books—not the smell of 
good paper and good ink, which is good, 
but a smell of the sea and of spices and of 
strange lands, for they must have be- 
longed to one of the Captains before my 
father got them. 

Nn the top of the big safe, one on each 
O corner, stood two models of full- 
rigged sailing ships, and never have I 
been happier than when they were taken 
down and set on the floor, and I could lie 
down by them and look at them and tell 
stories of their voyages to myself. They 
were on little stands and I could sail 
them to distant lands behind the big 


desk, through storms and calms. How 
I would have loved to take them home 
and launch them in the bathtub, with 
the Noah’s Ark that upset when it got 
wet and the people and the beasts that 
fell out of it in the water, and their paint 
came off, and the tin steamboat, to run 
on the floor, that wound up with a key 
and ran down even before it went to the 
bottom of the tub, and the glass ships 
and wooden ones—a whole fleet of them, 
and flocks and shoals of tin ducks and 
glass fishes that all spread over the face 
of the waters, when I put them in the 
bath. But if it was not possible to carry 
off these wonderful ships, they made me 
draw ships, horribly difficult things to 
get right. This was long before people 
began to collect ship models or wooden 
Indians which stood before every cigar 
store; and Revolutionary cannon that 
were planted upright on every corner to 
keep drivers off the brick pavements. 
OMETIMEs, but not often, the Marises 
S and the Morrises would come down 
with me to the office, and we would 
hunt in the dim back room and the 
dark lofts upstairs for English postage 
stamps on old letters, and find them; 
they must have been rare ones, for the 
firm was old. But we knew nothing 
about rarities, and though I started a 
stamp album, I soon tired of that. The 
collection of postage stamps even then 
bored me, for I knew there was nothing 
save money in it, but that is why most 
collectors collect. Little Cope boys and 
girls in crowds used to come too, but 
more rarely, from Awbury, their place 
near Germantown. There were endless 
brothers and sisters and cousins. But we 
did not chum up, though they too would 
pull old English stamps, some black pen- 
nies, off old letters; there must have been 
a fortune in these alone. Little did I 


{ 1868 | 





“poloary Gaang mop qinog ‘eiuppng aogrng 


08 P artuig Ronorg $9 aeyaudorg am x03 pousiand ps pow Bey a 











e Hieeess hee . Oe bese LES BIAL LL : tag : pot FPS: é b&b we 


LRRD DAPI PE HAO PO teeter 


owes NAMOUE 


& 


DRAWING MADE AT AGE OF SIX IN COPES’ OFFICE - THE DATE OF THE DRAWIN G IS ON THE 
POST MARK + MESSRS. BROWN SHIPLEY & COMPANY WERE COPES’ LIVERPOOL CORRESPON- 
DENTS AND AGENTS AND THIS DRAWING WAS MADE ON THE FOLDED SHEET IN WHICH AT 
THAT TIME LETTERS WERE ENCLOSED THE GENERAL USE OF ENVELOPES COMING IN LATER 


18 CHAPTER II - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


think that in a few years we would all 
be at school together—the younger ones 
—and grow up together, yet apart, and 
that three of us would go into art though 
we were Friends—John, who was in my 
class, becoming a very good landscape 
architect, and Walter, a year or more 
younger, also an architect, turning all 
American colleges into a lifeless copy of 
a dead English model, when he had the 
most beautiful living tradition, our Colo- 
nial art, our Philadelphia art, about him. 
He built part of the new University in 
this fashion when he had the old Univer- 
sityat Ninth and Chestnut—perfect Colo- 
nial, that never should have been touched 
—to inspire him. But that was despised 
by the vandals who destroyed it and who 
are themselves succeeded in Philadelphia 
by worse architectural vulgarians, full of 
French notions and ignorant of American 
art—teally of all art, for to be a French- 





man does not mean one necessarily must 
be an artist. And now these two sleep in 
the quiet burying ground with their 
family and my family, only their names 
and dates on the little gravestones in 
Friends’ Graveyard at Germantown. And 
I want to lie there too. 
ie the evenings my father and I would 
walk home from the office, up Walnut 
Street, the sun glaring in our faces till we 
could not see the red brick houses, by 
Friends’ Alms Houses and the State House 
and Orange Street Meeting and the Hos- 
pital, along perfect streets of these houses 
with white marble steps and white 
doors and white window shutters on the 
first and second stories, and green above, 
all gone now, and the green trees too, all 
the beauty of Penn’s sylvan city, my 
city—my home—that I foolishly thought 
to help to preserve, wrecked by vandals 
and uplifters, foreigners and fools. 


FRIENDS’ ALMS HOUSES ON WALNUT STREET BY WHICH MY FATHER AND I WOULD PASS ON 
OUR WAY HOME FROM THE OFFICE + PEN DRAWING MADE FOR HARPER'S WEEKLY 1882 


| 1869 | 


CHAPTER III: FRIENDS SCHOOL IN GERMANTOWN 
WE MOVE TO GERMANTOWN : SENT TO SCHOOL : TAUGHT 
DRAWING BY LAMBDIN - WIN A PRIZE - THE CENTENNIAL 


I GRADUATE : THE 


THE CLASS OF SEVENTY-SIX AT FRIENDS’ SCHOOL - JOSEPH PENNELL IN CENTER: JOHN S. COPE 


FIRST AND ONLY BOY TO DO SO 






ee 


SEATED RIGHT » MARY WEST HUSTON DESCENDANT OF BENJAMIN WEST EXTREME RIGHT 


HEN I was ten years old, in 

1870, we moved to Fisher’s 

Lane, Germantown, into a 

new, jerry -built, jig-saw 
decorated house, my father having sold 
the place on Lombard Street for just what 
he paid for it. I was sent to German- 
town Friends’ Select School. It was a 
school for Friends only, then. Iam glad 
I refused to go to Westtown Boarding 
School, to which it was planned to send 
me. Beautiful and quict as Westtown is, 
or was, it would have ruined me, for 
boarding schools and boy scouts and all 
other herding make for the ruin of a 
child, and so the ruin of a country. At the 


Germantown School I stayed for six aw- 
ful years, the worst of my life, for there is 
caste and precedence and all other things 
of that sort among Friends as well as 
among the world’s people. Because my 
family had not made money, and so made 
good as other Friends with less to start 
with, both socially and financially, we 
were scarce in it or of it. But all that is 
another story; it is all over and this is the 
story of my beginnings as an illustrator. 
The move to Germantown gave me new 
ideas. Again there was war, the French- 
German War, but that was far away and 
we boys had battles of our own with In- 
dians in Wister’s Woods which were far 


[1870 ] 


20 CHAPTER III - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


more important to fight. I grew up with 
the boys and girls in and around the 
Lane, the Bailys and the Henrys and the 
Browns and the Snowdens, all Friends, 
or relations of Friends, but the Henrys, 
—most respectable, all of them, they 
thought themselves. We used to see art- 
ists at work in the Wingohocking Valley 
behind Stenton. There was a painter man 
who sat on a stool, under an umbrella, 
in the meadow by the creek, even then 
a stinking sewer, oil-stained after it had 
passed Fisher’s Cotton Mills. He painted 
cows in the landscape and it was fun to 
shy stones at the crank, for he was a fat 
Dutchman and he could not, we knew, 
run fast enough up the hill to catch us. 
Two of us now are artists, and a third is 
a collector of art. But later on, in the 
long summer, I grew quite interested in 
the painter. He was doing the same sub- 
ject, again and again, as all American 
painters do when it pays, and I sneaked 
up behind him to see how he did it. But 
he had a good memory and, turning sud- 
denly on the little snooper, he gave me 
some good instruction in the art of both- 
ering artists and what comes of it, of 
which, in my time, I have made much 
use more than once since. 

vEN then I wanted to study art, but 
E there was no one to teach me, though 
most people who gape at artists, as I was 
doing, merely gape as they do at a dead 
horse or a panned motor. There was an- 
other artist who painted in Wister’s 
Woods but we had great respect for him 
and left him alone. A third made photo- 
graphs and concocted things from them. 
His work we never saw, we only heard 
of it, though he was my cousin. These 
two artists were Friends and went to 
Meeting. They were William T. Rich- 
ards and George B. Wood, and I think 
they were the last artist members of the 


Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, now, 
as when founded, ‘‘a company of gentle- 
men,’’ the charter says—gentlemen ac- 
cording to Philadelphia notions. But to 
be a gentleman does not mean that one 
need know anything of art, anyway in 
Philadelphia, where most do not. 

t+ Germantown School, as at the 
A school in Philadelphia, every Fifth 
Day we went to Meeting, walking over— 
the old Meeting House was in the school 
grounds—two by two from the school- 
house, the boys and the girls apart, 
though we sat together in school; or if 
not, we boys were punished by being 
made to sit between two girls in the 
classrooms. I can add nothing to the sub- 
ject of co-education because I thought 
nothing about it. We, boys and girls, just 
grew up together, and that was all. We 
saw much of each other out of the class, 
at parties in winter and on picnics in sum- 
mer we were together, but there was one 
thing I never could understand —why 
sometimes, when after school we would 
chase the girls among the shrubbery in 
the old school yard they would run round 
and round the lilac bushes, till they were 
tired, but never into the school house, and 
then we kissed the prettiest—and they 
were pretty. Somehow it did not amount 
to much, but in all the years we were to- 
gether in school or out of it, there never 
was the slightest breath of scandal of any 
sort about us, and it was because we had 
no chaperon, we were not spied upon— 
we boys were on our honor, and it was 
our duty to protect the girls and that was 
all there was to it—and so every one grew 
up decently because we were Friends. 
Even after, but one boy and girl who had 
been in the class together married. I made 
no intimate school friendships either— 
my chum was John Henry who lived in 
the Lane, the only boy friend I ever had 


{1871 | 


oe.) eT eo © 





—and when he went to college and I went 
to work I lost him. And I have never had 
a real friend since. Do they exist? Every 
morning each of us had to recite verses of 
the Bible as school opened, and every 
Second Day morning the whole chapter 


e 








& 


we had learned the week before, and we 
were kept in, if we made a mistake, until 
we got it perfect. That is the way Whist- 
ler and I learned English —not from 
teachers who couldnt talk it, as they cant 
now, but from King James’ version of the 
Bible. We did not always understand 
what we learned, and sometimes indis- 
creet questions would be asked. One day 


one of the girls inquired: ‘‘Teacher, what 


is a concubine?”’ ““Thee stay in at recess, 
Sally Jane, and I'll tell thee,’’ said the 


GERMANTOWN FRIENDS’ MEETING » DRAWN AT THE SCHOOL UNDER LAMBDIN ABOUT 1873 


AT GERMANTOWN - AT SCHOOL AND IN MEETING 21 


teacher. To the Fifth Day Meeting, Wil- 
liam Kite and Samuel Emlen and Samuel 
Morris and the other men ministers and 
elders came, leaving their business; and 
the women ministers came too. And what 
character, what refinement the men had! 








How beautiful, how calm the women 
were—the whole like a Franz Hals! 
And no one, save Smedley in one attempt, 
painted or drew the character and the 
beauty. And yet Smedley, Howard Pyle, 
Mary Hallock Foote knew it all, for they 
were Friends, though Pyle was a Hicks- 
ite. And we children, for that hour and 
a half, tried to be good, the boys sitting 
on one side with the men Friends, the 
girls with the women. But it was long, 
though peaceful, that hour and a half. 


{ 87x | ; 


22 CHAPTER III - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


E came on First Day mornings, too, 

\4 sitting there under the gold bars of 
light falling down through the Venetian 
blinds, listening to the sounds of flies in- 
side and horses outside stamping in the 
sheds in summer, or to the roar of the 
winds round the house in winter, and the 
crackle of logs in the big stoves in the 
old Meeting House. And once in a while 
there was a marriage and the world’s 
people came to hear the groom say that 
“with Divine permission and Friends’ 
approbation,’ he would take the bride 
to be his ‘‘loving wife, till death should 
separate’ them. Sometimes it was a 
silent Meeting; but oftener the spirit 
moved some minister to speak—and they 
could speak, and meant what they said— 
before the heads of the Meeting shook 
hands and broke it up. Every month 
there was a Monthly Meeting and the 
caretaker would let down the wooden 
division shutters, like window sashes, 
between the men’s and the women’s side. 
Each had a separate business meeting 
and sat on separate sides of the partition. 
The business would be gone through, and 
how tired we were of the reports and 
queries; but how we waked up when 
some Friends Passed Meeting before 
they were married, and in the concerns 
Friends had to visit, or send epistles to 
other Meetings. For we of Germantown 
Preparative, Frankford Monthly, Abing- 
ton Quarterly, and Philadelphia Yearly 
Meeting, regarded ourselves, down to 
the smallest and tiniest Friendlet, as far 
superior to any other Friends, and we 
listened to the preparation of minutes 
or the concern of friends to visit New 
York and even London Yearly Meeting, 
considering them to be in need of coun- 
sel from Philadelphia, where Orthodox 
Friends knew they were more Friendly 
than other Friends, whom they warned 


to keep to the straight and narrow way. 
It was a good way, and if only I could 
have kept to it myself, I should have 
been a different person. The love of the 
Friends’ doctrine has never left me,though 
I have fallen by the wayside. Still, I wish 
I could live up to it—the simplest and 
most perfect doctrine in the world, the 
doctrine of Christ practised by real 
Friends, real Christians. 
I po not remember that I learned any- 
thing in Germantown School that I 
have not forgotten or have not had to 
unlearn, save the Bible, drawing and his- 
tory—and the names of State Capitals 
that haunt me which we chanted—our 
nearest approach to singing. *‘Pennsylva- 
nia, Harrisburg onthe Susquehanna River; 
New York, Albany on the Hudson River; 
Massachusetts, Boston’’—we never were 
sureifit hadariver. Imight have learned 
the classics if the teacher had had any 
notions of anything but Latin and Greek 
grammar. Their beauty was hidden from 
him. I dont believe he knew anything 
but what he got out of books. The things 
I translated for myself, ‘‘When the cloud 
shadows chase each other over the sides 
of the mountains,’’ are all I remember, 
and I do not owe that to the teacher, 
who did not understand what it meant. 
I could see the pictures in Virgil and 
Horace the others never saw, and one 
day I got hold of a crib, or a translation 
and I studied it by heart—the day’s les- 
son—and when I was called on, I stood 
up and spouted it forth, and there was a 
sensation. Then the teacher, the awful 
headmaster, called on me to parse a sen- 
tence and to give the meaning of certain 
words. I could not, and, well, I dont 
believe he could have done so either. 
Who ever heard of a teacher of English, 
Latin or Art who would be teaching, if 
he or she could do anything in art or 


[ 1872 | 





AT GERMANTOWN - THE TEACHERS AND THE STUDENTS 23 


literature. I teach now, but not that 
way. If I had—which I am thankful I 
have not—a child—a man child—he 
should never go to school and be stand- 
ardized. My left hand brought meall sorts 
of trouble from the teachers, who tried 
to make me copy the abominable Spen- 
cerian standardized writing of the copy 
books, so full of stupid moral tritenesses, 
with my right hand when I could do it 
better with my left. If these instructors 
of youth had had any sense, they would 
have encouraged me to use both hands; 
but these people and their pupils use one 
hand, one-half their brains, and, there- 
fore, have one-half of one sense. I may 
say, however, they did not succeed, and 
to this day my right hand, save in a few 
things, knows not what my left hand 
doeth. How the teachers made us hate 
them for their stupidity, for we small boys 
were far more intelligent than they; it 
was only as we grew up that we became 
standardized and hypnotized by their 
stupidity, which is what our education 
means and is. Now these things are in- 
grained in Americans who, therefore, 
mostly do not grow up but are mental 
and moral runts and feeble-minded; aged 
about fourteen. This is the result of gym- 
nastics, kindergartens, boy scouts, sports 
—all hypnotizing and standardizing 
machinery for killing character. Now we 
only cultivate children’s arms and legs; 
their bellies are weak and their heads 
are empty. It is not fashionable to read, 
only to play. We are become a race of 
cocksure imbeciles. There are exceptions. 
East Side Jews are encouraged, despite the 
fact that in all the world there has never 
been a great Jewish artist; I mean worker 
in the graphic or plastic arts. It does not 
pay well enough, quick enough, so they 
dont stick at it long enough. And all chil- 
dren are carted to galleries they hate, and 


encouraged and boosted for a moment in- 
to a notoriety that it takes real creative 
artists, and how few there are, a whole 
lifetime to attain; but this is education, 
so-called, sandwiched between ball games 
and flag-worshipping patriotism, the 
refuge of cowards. Not long ago, a class 
was taken to the Metropolitan to see the 
Primitives and when they were through 
the teacher asked what they liked best. 
“T dont like any cause dey aint like Mutt 
and Jeff,’’ answered a young American, 
standing up for the art he knew and loved. 
Another day I saw a citizen with his lit- 
tle daughter before Saint Gaudens’ Lin- 
coln. ““Vots dot ugly ole man, popper?” - 
“I dunno,’’ said the parent. Lincoln’s 
name was on the base—I heard that. 

UT sometimes we would retaliate. I 
loys the boy who filled a rose 
with pepper and left it on the teacher’s 
desk, and I remember that she smelt it; 
but I dont remember if the little imp was 
ever found out. I knew who did it, but 
I did not tell. Friends can keep secrets. 

DID care for a few of the teachers— 
presence Sue, who taught me history 
and who, also, when I had made a draw- 
ing on my slate, would come round and 
either sponge it out or write under it, 
“Satan always finds something for idle 
hands to do.”’ Naturally, at the moment, 
I hated her. We had terrific tussles. She 
meant well and so did I; but I think she 
liked me—I hope so. The headmaster never 
reasoned with me, never advised me pri- 
vately. I never saw him out of school, nor 
was I ever asked to the homes of any of 
the other teachers. There was no intimacy, 
no companionship out of school, and in it 
they were only teachers—or rather, they 
never taught, they only heard us recite 
and put down marks. The life was utterly 
different from that of any other school 
boy who has ever written his adventures. 


[1873 ] 


Peis CHAPTER III - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Then there was ‘‘Madame’’; we little 
Friends called her that. The Meeting never 
knew that we called Madam, ‘‘Madame.”’ 
She had no other name for us. I liked her 
too. She taught French. She succeeded a 
solemn person who, we were told, was the 
only Frenchman who escaped from Mexico 
after the execution of Maximilian. My 
father wanted me to learn French and, 
well, I learned it in the American fashion 
of those days, much more practically, I 
am sure, than it is learned now. And it 
helped me later into and out of scrapes in 
France. My father saw somehow into the 
future. It was an extra and I was at the 
tail of all the other classes; but he made 
me take French. I dont remember if there 
was a teport of that, but there was a 
monthly book full of my want of marks 
in all other classes save drawing. For there 
was a drawing master—an innovation in 
Friends’ School—one of those magnif- 
icent Philadelphians who walked Chest- 
nut Street,where he had his studio; splen- 
did, six-feet, gray-bearded like Whitman 
and Leland—James R. Lambdin. Of course 
we were made from the beginning to 
draw, or trace from drawing copy books 
or on glass slates, which I could never 
do decently—and I cant trace decently 
now. We also drew maps, and mine were 
amazing: all illustrated—all destroyed, I 
hope. So were my school books :—Virgil, 
a complete translation of the first book, 
prigged, as I said, from a crib, Milton 
and Goldsmith. Luckily, all have gone. 
Once, a professor of art came, and for a 
dollar, to be paid in advance, guaranteed 
to make each of us an artist in one lesson. 
Ialone rushed home to get the dollar, but 
failed, and so became an illustrator. And, 
although I did not then know it, all art is 
illustration. Later a Lecturer was intro- 
duced, learned in the history of art and 
artlessness, with charts and diagrams, 


and I joined. And Bay Smith, the future 
Mrs. Berenson, was in it, too. But I was 
bored. The Lecturer became later a Direc- 
tor, and an expounder of architectural 
refinements or the accidents of time. Al- 
though he died the other day in the full- 
ness of years and of honors, I yet fail to 
grasp whether his theories or his knowl- 
edge or his honors were worth anything. 
I know his photographs were good, and 
I also know he was always getting in 
my way when he was photographing 
and plumb-lining, and I was drawing in 
French cathedrals. But peace to him, 
which is more than he would, I fear, say 
of me, even though once he introduced 
me on a lecture platform, to his great dis- 
comfort. His name was W. H. Goodyear. 

HE new master was a different sort. 

As I have said, he had a studio on 
Chestnut Street, though he lived in Ger- 
mantown. I do not know if he had stud- 
ied abroad; I know that he was a member 
of the Pennsylvania Academy; but as with 
all other native Philadelphia artists, I 
fear Philadelphia had no use for him— 
and so it has been from Benjamin West to 
myself. He taught me one thing—and he 
tried to teach the class, too—to use my 
eyes, my brains, my memory—all that 
American educators are ignorant of— 
above all, drawing from memory; that is 
most valuable, though even then you 
must have something to say for yourself. 
Education leads to standardized stupidity. 
And long, long beforeI heardof Whistler's 
practice, of the Japanese system, of De 
Boisbaudran’s method, I tried to carry 
out what Lambdin told me, told the 
blind, dumb class—to use my mind and 
my memory. And I have tried to follow 
his teaching to this day. Lambdin’s 
method was to make you draw some ob- 
ject before you; then, not looking at it, 
to draw what you remembered of it. This 


[1873 | 








JAMES R. LAMBDIN + PORTRAIT BY HIMSELF IN THE PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS 
JOSEPH PENNELL’S FIRST DRAWING TEACHER AT FRIENDS’ SELECT SCHOOL GERMANTOWN 


26 CHAPTER III - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


class alone I led. I was far below the tail 
in all the others, save history. Everything 
else Lambdin taught in the ordinary way, 
though he was always telling us to make 
drawings from nature, if we wanted to 
learn to draw. Two or three did, and so 
encouraged was he that before vacation he 
offered a prize for the best drawing made 
out of doors during the summer, to be 
awarded when the school reopened in the 
fall. I drew the house across the street, in 
the holidays. How I worked over it! But 
I tried to do it inmy own way. The school 
opened again; the students brought the 
drawings they had made. I believe there 
were a lot, for there was the prize, and 
prizes are the source and curse of most 
American art. I saw at once that only one 
other drawing counted. Bob Shoemaker 
had made it—the Falls of the Yosemite or 
the Yellowstone—his rich father having 
taken him to that far-away land during 
the vacation. There it was, a most remark- 
able thing in pencil; we all worked in 
pencil. Wonderful, I thought it. I was 
sure I had no chance for the prize. But 
Lambdin looked at the two and handed 
the prize, a silver crayon holder in a 
leather case, tome. Like the entire class, 
I was stunned. I sat at my desk staring at 
it. It was just before the recess of half an 
hour. I sat there for fifteen minutes of the 
recess; then I put the case in my desk, and 
then I loafed out into the playground. All 
together, the boys were waiting for me— 
the girls never came in our yard—Bob 
Shoemaker in the midst. But we did not 
fight. Little Friends never fought with 
their fists; but they did make remarks that 
I, the unpopular, the outsider, with a mere 
drawing of a commonGermantown house, 
should be preferred to the popular, the 
rich boy who had seen and done things, 
was not fair, and it was only in a draw- 
ing class run by some one who wasnt a 


Friend and had no business in Friends’ 
School that such a thing could have hap- 
pened. Everybody in the school, from the 
principal down, seemed against me, and 
though I did not like it, it was good train- 
ing, and I have found since a not unusual 
experience in prize winning, which 1s 
mostly productive of heartburning and 
jealousy, and is mostly only graft in this 
land of grafters, which we are to-day. It 
is all right when you are in the gang, for 
then you get the prizes when your turn 
comes to get them. 
Bz I am glad Lambdin gave me that 
prize. I have never had a money prize 
and would not take one. I have never 
fought to get a prize, so I take them when 
they come to me, and I have a number. 
Still, I wonder, as Lambdin did, whether 
Bob Shoemaker made that drawing from 
nature, at the age of twelve or fourteen. 
If he really did, he might have been a 
great artist instead of a mere millionaire, 
as I believe he now is, if he is still alive, 
though I do not know what has become 
of him. The prize sent me for a time to na- 
ture and life. I never told Lambdin what 
I did, though once, I remember, I let him 
see some horses I was proud of and he 
liked them. Then my father bought some 
volumes of Dickens with illustrations by 
Cruikshank, Phiz and the rest of those 
British bunglers, and in one volume was a 
tree with skeleton branches; and there for 
some time I found or lost myself and came 
near out-Rackhaming Rackham, and the 
branches of my trees for a time became 
skeletons. It took me more time to get 
over that trick. In winter, the skeletons 
were everywhere, but in spring another 
boy who drew—though he did not attend 
Friends’ School—Latimer Brown, and I 
would go out together sketching, and as 
he saw no skeletons in the trees, I forgot 
them and I began to try to draw what I 


[1873 ] 








THE DRAWING WHICH WON THE PRIZE AT GERMANTOWN SCHOOL + A HOUSE ON FISHER’S 
LANE OPPOSITE THE PENNELLS’ HOME + DRAWN IN PENCIL FROM NATURE °* JULY 17 1873 








28 CHAPTER III - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


saw, wotking on brown paper with black 
and white chalks. Where we got the 
money to buy these, I do not know. When 
I was afraid to ask my father, I may have 
run upa bill at school; but I think it most 
likely that my father, as usual, gave me 
the money or the materials, for he never 
refused ; I was only afraid to ask. I remem- 
ber one drawing of trees we did. Do boys 
of twelve spend their holidays drawing 
now? After that, I found Germantown 
devoid of skeletons and full of interest 
—Wakefield Mills, Wister’s Mills, Har- 
per’s Dam. It must have been that winter 
the dam broke, and with the thermometer 
down to zero, I made a pencil drawing of 
it—not for anybody, not for anything, 
but just because I had to;—I was an illus- 
trator. And maybe it was that winter, too, 
as I was learning to do grapevines on the 
ice, Fanny Kemble came and stood on a 
rock which jutted into the dam and said 
sweetly, in a voice of thunder, ‘‘Is Owen 
Wister here2’’ She was his aunt. That was 
the only time I saw her, but he and I 
now face each other in Academic golden- 
labeled chairs on great official occasions. 
iN then I went in for woodcutting with 

a boy next door, and when we had made 
our blocks, we tried to print them with 
shoeblacking on a wringing machine, but 
he tore his nails off in the cog wheels and 
blamed me for his carelessness; and that 
ended my wood-block printing. Of course, 
we did other things. We went to pigeon 
matches and cricket matches, all done 
away with now—for decayed golf, aim- 
less bridge. The next year Lambdin left the 
school—I dont know why—and was suc- 
ceeded by Joseph Ropes as drawing master, 
avery different man, ‘small, shy, modest, ”’ 
even Tuckerman says of him. Artists were 
not many in America forty-five years ago 
and the few made history. Ropes took to 
me, as very few do—or is it I who keep 


people off? In the spring he used to let me 
go out with him sketching, afternoon 
after afternoon, and in his way taught me. 
But his way was not my way. Everything 
was to be seen not as I saw it but as he 
saw it, just as I had seen skeletons, but 
according to his system and his perspec- 
tive, upon which he had written a book, 
and he gavemeacopy. He took me to his 
studio on Main Street and there, in a bare 
top room, showed me his oil paintings 
and water colors and gave me one of 
Tivoli, where, he told me, he had found 
an Italian wife and lost her and never got 
over it. And there he tried to teach me to 
work in water color in his way; but again 
his way was not my way and he gave it 
up, though my father was paying him a 
dollar a lesson. Luckily, from the begin- 
ning, I was stubborn and did as I wanted. 
He tried, and so did I, and he came near 
conquering me, but when he proudly sent 
me to show my work to Peter Moran, 
who taught in Philadelphia, and I walked 
fourteen miles there and back on Seventh 
Day afternoon after school, Moran would 
not waste time over me, or even see me, 
sending down word—and it was the truth 
—that mine were “‘the most mannered 
things he ever saw from one so young.”’ 
Moran was right. Ropes and I were wrong. 
Ropes also made etchings on glass and | 
tried too, drawing with a point through 
a glass negative which had been exposed 
to a white screen, and then printing it 
like a photograph. There were some of 
these around in Germantown for a long 
while, treasured, I believe, as my early 
work. Ropes liked me still, and when 
things began to happen, wrote mea proud 
letter, which I stupidly never answered, 
and I never heard from or of him again. 
It took time to get out of these manner- 
isms, and then I fell into others—and still 
do—and so have misled millions. And the 


[1874] 





AT GERMANTOWN - THE DRAWING MASTERS OF THE SCHOOL 29 


rest of my life has been spent in trying 
to get out of them and finding myself. I 
also went to William T. Richards, who, 
in another way, was as mannered in his 
maturity as 1 in my youth, and he told me 
to take my sketches away and burn them, 
and then draw something, if I could. So I 
drew a geranium plant, and really it 
wasnt bad, as I saw it before the War. 
And when he saw it Richards said I might 
learn to draw, though, from my other 
sketches, henever would have thought it 
possible. He did not waste time encourag- 
ing me, but he started me working seri- 
ously, which is not the fashion nowadays. 

y drawing went on, in and out of 
M school, till the spring of 1876. I never 
played much at football, cricket or base- 
ball, though, being left-handed, I liked 
to upset the whole cricket field when I 
did bow]; and I did some fearful smashing 
of wickets with left-hand grounders. As I 
did not have to, I rarely played; but I 
could skate better than any one in the 
school, and also managed to ride the bone- 
shaker bicycle owned by one of the boys— 
that I adored. All the while I was trying to 
learn drawing for myself, but did not know 
good from bad, and Ropes had gone and 
there was no one to tell me or show me. 
In Friends’ Library there were hardly any 
illustrated magazines—there were none 
that had any novels in them—only Har- 
PER’s and ScrIBNER’S, anyway, were pub- 
lished—and to see them and Goop Worps 
and Tue Art Journat and Tue Grapuic 
and Harper’s Weekty and Frank Lezs- 
Liz's, | had to walk seven miles down 
Germantown Avenue to Broad Street and 
down Broad toChestnut,and down Chest- 
nut to Tenth, to the Mercantile Library. 
Twelve cents could be better spent than 
on horse-car fare, but six cents were spent 
coming back, if I was too tired to walk. 
So I learned to tramp; but how long those 


tramps were sometimes. I vowed I would 
go, and I knew I should get back some- 
how, and that determination, Quaker grit, 
and nothing else, has carried me through 
many a long tramp, many a worse mess. 
So far, I have always got back somehow. 
Sometimes, when I had seen what I 
wanted and had ten cents, I would buy a 
railroad ticket from Ninth and Green to 
Wayne Station and not get off; then Kite, 
the conductor, who knew us all, would 
stop the train between there and Fisher’s 
Lane, bythe Young America cricket ground, 
and I, and possibly other boys, would be 
thrown off; and Kite would share in the 
glory, and we would finish the afternoon 
playing cricket, for all of us could play 
cricket; all Germantown did. It was cor- 
rect. Other people had fun with the cars. 
There was Miss X’s mother who took the 
horse cars—they lived in Doctor Y's house 
—because they were four cents cheaper 
than the steam cars, and she could also 
give tracts to people; and one morning 
some one had handed the conductor a bad 
five-cent piece, and he swore when he found 
it;and she said, ‘John Jones, istheesaved?”’ 
And he answered, ‘‘Missus X, it’s none of 
your damn business!’’ After that, and 
other happenings, they left Germantown 
and America for England, and the father 
lived in a tree, and did more quaint weird 
things as long as he was on earth. 

y father, really for my sake, I am 
M sure, bought old volumes of THE 
Grapuic and Tue Art Journat, L’Art, 
and Tue Portro.io, far better than any 
illustrated journals we have to-day, and 
subscribed for ScR1BNER’s, which then every 
one saw; and I began to copy things in 
them, and I got from the library Ruskin’s 
ELEMENTs OF Drawinc and Penley’s WATER 
Cotor ParntInG, and mixed them all up 
with Harding’s trees and George Reid’s 
landscapes, so it is not very wonderful if 


[1875 | 


30 CHAPTER III - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


my ideas and my style got mixed too. I 
had not the brains to discriminate. I won- 
der if any one left alone has in the begin- 
ning; and there was no one toask. Besides, 
I was getting known as a sort of prodigy, 
and that is fatal to progress, for I have had 
to unlearn everything I picked up at that 
time. Had I been properly taught my craft, 
I would have been able to do far more and 
far better, for I have more brains than 
most people, but I had to unlearn every- 
thing and try to learn again in the right 
way later. [had told Ropes, though no one 
else, that I was going to be an illustrator, 
and the School bought a number of casts, 
mostly hands and feet, and some angels’ 
heads I had never seen before and never 
have since, and I drew them with stump, 
which he showed me how to work. I 
hated it then as I do now. Well can I re- 
member the principal coming into the 
‘“‘Museum’’—a room with cases—where 
I was at work, sent to draw by myself, 
and where there was an anatomical man 
and shells and a microscope and books 
anda skeleton ina glass case. The princi- 
pal, when he saw me, sneered, *‘So thee’s 
got to drawing the human form divine, 
has thee?’’ And then he grinned at me. 
I could have killed him, Friend though 
Iwas. Little do talkative teachers know 
what their silent pupils think of them. I 
often wonder what my pupils think of me, 
but I hope I dont talk that way to them. 
I HAD determined to get into the school 

of the Pennsylvania Academy of the 
Fine Arts, which was to open in the new 
building on Broad Street in the fall of 
1876. The Academy exhibition in the 
spring of that year was notable, for then 
it was that Chase, Shirlaw, Duveneck, 
Dielman, Twachtman, Muhrman, Cour- 
ier, Carl Marr, McLure Hamilton, had 
returned from Munich or Antwerp, and 
all sent to the Academy. Had they only 


been as clever commercially as they were 
artistically equal to the boys of Glasgow, 
an American School would have burst 
that year upon the world. The exhibition 
dazzled me so much that I went again 
and again, once taking with me one of 
the girl students. I was arrayed in a new 
Wanamaker imitation tweed suit to my 
own satisfaction, only marred by running 
into some other members of the class who 
had come to town too, and they laughed 
at me. I never had to struggle for want 
of money. I lived at home, and never at 
any time paid for anything; and, ina fit 
of business ability, I bought, as a bar- 
gain, a dozen Cochin China eggs for fifty 
cents. These all hatched—we kept chick- 
ens in the back yard—and I found myself 
possessed of twelve naked monsters, male 
and female after their kind, which finally 
clothed themselves with golden feathers 
and became the admiration of German- 
town. They took to laying and as the 
eggs—in fact, any eggs I had—now 
brought a dollar a dozen, I felt myself 
a financier. I could not tell Cochin eggs 
from other eggs, for we had other chick- 
ens. I regret to say that sometimes these 
eggs hatched Bantams instead of Cochin 
Chinas, and sometimes common fowls. 
Such things will happen when one has 
mixed chickens. So I was a flourishing 
enough little prig, soon able to ride to 
town, to go to picture shows, and to buy 
books—Ruskin’s Mopern Parnters and 
Hamerton’s INTELLECTUAL Lirz, and never 
finished either, and Gilchrist’s Biaxg, if 
you please—and to subscribe to magazines; 
or rather to get others to subscribe and to 
have a free copy myself by acting as agent 
for them. This state of things went on for 
months, till the grass in our front and back 
yards was all torn up by the beasts of 
Cochin China, and till they began to be 
stolen. And they would fly up on my 


{ 1876 | 


ig ae oS 


t 


4 





MAIN STREET GERMANTOWN FROM A LITHOGRAPH MADE 1908 FOR OUR PHILADELPHIA 
IN THE SEVENTIES 'THE GERMANTOWN ROAD WAS LINED FOR MILES WITH BEAUTIFUL 
COLONIAL HOMES BEGINNING WITH THE LOGAN MANSION - AMONG OTHERS WERE THE 
JOHNSON HOUSES AND THIS ONE UPSALA FACED THE CHEWS’ THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ALL 





AT GERMANTOWN - DECORATING THE MEETING HOUSE 33 


Aunt Martha’s shoulders and scare the 
life out of her, as well as nearly knocking 
her down. Then I sold them for a fabu- 
lous sum to one of the Copes, and lived 
for months in a riot of shows I rode to, 
at Earle’s and Haseltine’s, and of books 
I purchased and picked up in second- 
hand shops; and so began my collecting. 
I also thought to make a fortune out of 
peanuts and bought a pint of unroasted 
ones and planted them in the spring and 
they came up and blossomed and bloomed 
—all the chickens did not eat—but no 
nuts. And the summer and fall passed and 
the leaves fell and winter came; then one 
day I grabbed those barren stalks and 
pulled and pulled; the whole earth came 
up—not earth but peanuts. But I did not 
go into the business. 

EFORE the school closed in 1876, I 
ey ie to graduate with three girls— 
the first boy to do so; I had been through 
a course of natural history or geology or 
something of the sort. I forget it all, 
save that in the Museum were some trilo- 
bites and that I drew them and a ship at 
sea in pen and ink, a subject I had imag- 
ined, for I had never made any sketches 
on my brief trips to Boston or down the 
bay in Copes’ ships or to Atlantic City. 
My father used to take me on the out- 
going ships, and we would stay on board 
till the pilot left at the Capes. And I re- 
member the sailors singing, “‘We're off 
to Philadelphia in the morning,’’ though 
they, blind drunk, had been carried aboard 
thenight before. Mysketcheswereframed, 
I dont know why, and hung in the big 
schoolroom. I wonder what became of 
them or my seascape invention; all lost, 
I suppose, like the plain language which 
has fled from the school. Only Walter 
Cope, of my contemporaries, 1s remem- 
bered. Though one of my Liberty Loan 
War posters hangs in it now. 


B uT before I graduated, several things 
happened. John Cope, who did not 
graduate, and I really distinguished our- 
selves. The new Meeting House in the 
School yard was being painted outside, 
and one day, during the long recess, we 
climbed on to the top of the porch, 
watched by all the pupils, including the 
to-be Mrs. Berenson, and in broad day- 
light, took the painters’ pots and brushes 
and executed, in real fresco, a full-length 
portrait of an eminent Friend, in “‘broad 
brim and shad-belly’’, a symphony in 
brown, the only paint the painters had— 
an overseer of the Meeting and member 
of the School Committee whom we hated. 
We also wrote up the names of the streets 
on which the Meeting House faced on the 
walls of the building. Now this Friend, 
without our noticing it, happened to be 
taking the air in his back garden across 
Coulter Street and seeing what was being 
done, came over, and we found him waiting 
for us at the foot of the ladder when the 
bell rang for us to go back to work, and we 
were greeted by him as well as by the as- 
sembled pupils and teachers and painters 
when we climbed down. Suffice it to say 
that, after an emergency meeting of the 
School Committee and the Overseers of 
the Meeting, it was decided that as John 
Cope and I would be leaving in a few 
wecks, and as John Cope—son of a 
Committeeman and the son of an Elder 
and a Cope—was hopelessly involved, it 
would not do to expel him, and they 
could not therefore expel me. So, save 
for a lecture before the whole school and 
a bill for removing the work of art, it 
was thought best to ignore my first and 
last attempt at mural painting and Church 
or Meeting House decoration. But for 
years the ghost of a portrait still remained 
on the walls and was pointed out, I under- 
stand, as my work; and that is all I left 


| 876 | 


34 CHAPTER III - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


almost as tradition, in the school. I had 
one other experience with a committee- 
man. We were playing foot ball our way, 
just kicking it about, in the big school 
grounds one day after Meeting—for we 
played everywhere save in the graveyards. 
He joined in,‘‘broad brim and shad-belly,”’ 
and I gave the ball a fearsome kick, I usu- 
ally missed it, and it took him square in 
his face, which was covered by it—it even 
went behind his ears as his hat flew off. 
He just looked at me as he emerged from 
the ball; he said nothing, but I wonder 
what he thought—and what he thought 
when one day I saw him again in his back 
yard smoking a big cigar, for cigars and 
plain clothes dont seem to belong together. 
I never saw another plain Friend smoke. 

GRADUATION essay had to be pre- 
A pared and I suggested that I should 
write mine on the paintings at the Cen- 
tennial—my first incursion into art criti- 
cism. This necessitated a number of visits 
to the Exhibition, beginning with the 
opening ceremonies. I was delighted, for 
I saw Abbey and Reinhart and I do not 
know how many other illustrators, over 
a big doorway, sketching President 
Grant. There were no snap-shotters then, 
and I turned my back on the President 
to watch the illustrators sketch. Then, 
too, I made the acquaintance of the Eng- 
lishman who was running the London 
Grapuic show, in which were a number 
of original sketches and drawings, and 
they interested me far more than the tele- 
phone and the Emperor of Brazil, both 
novelties. And I also had my first fall 
off a tall bicycle, which I saw for the 
first time and tried. Still, despite these 
attractions, the essay was written, it 1s 
lost, but I remember it was about three 
pictures— Wagner's Chariot Race in the 
Circus Maximus; one of a martyr having 
his feet roasted by inquisitors; and the 


subject of the third I have forgotten, as 
well as what I said of all of them, and 
the names of the two other painters. I 
do, however, remember Holman Hunt’s 
portrait of himself, now in the Uffizi, 
and a Slinger, by Leighton, and that is 
all, although I believe there were things 
by Whistler, of whom I had never heard. 
Soon the ‘‘Mother’’ was to hang in the 
Pennsylvania Academy, and though the 
directors could have had it for five hun- 
dred dollars, they had not the brains to 
get it, or anything else by him, and they 
bought a ridiculous Greaves “‘portrait’’ 
instead. While one of the directors, John- 
son, had a fake Whistler, and his real one, 
‘The Lange Leizen,’’ has been ruined, 
and of Widener’s,another director's, ‘River 
Scene,’’ I have my doubts too. On the 
other hand, there are two superb Whis- 
tlers in Philadelphia almost unknown, 
‘The Yellow Buskin’’ and‘‘Mrs.Cassatt.”’ 
Mr. John Braun has a third, a “‘ White 
Girl.’’ The lost portrait of “‘ Lady Archi- 
bald Campbell as Orlando,’ turned up one 
rainy night in the city and I was able to 
identify it, but it has disappeared again. 
And there was a set of the “Thames Etch- 
ings’ given by Whistler to Dr. James Dar- 
rach with whom Dr. Whistler studied 
medicine in Philadelphia, but they were 


‘destroyed, while Mr. Claghorn’s Whis- 


tlers were sold and scattered, instead of 
going to the Print Collection of the 
Academy of Fine Arts. But many strange 
things happen in the Quaker City. 
lees essay was read in the Committee 

Room, or Preparative Meeting Room 
of the Meeting House, the first time such 
a thing happened, and I was compli- 
mented and presented with a diploma, 
and a bouquet by the girls who did not 
graduate, and covered with confusion. 
And so ended my school life, the unhap- 
piest six years of all my life. 


[1876 } 


BraPiBR IV, AT THE INDUSTRIAL ART. SCHOOL 
BEGINNING TO STUDY SERIOUSLY: BECOME A CLERK: ENTER 
SCHOOL OF ART :- STUDY A YEAR : EXPELLED FROM SCHOOL 


f 





COAL WHARF AT KENSINGTON +: DRAWING MADE APRIL 27 1879 WHILE AT THE SCHOOL OF 


INDUSTRIAL ART - 


uT of a little of the proceeds of 
the saleofthechickensto Alfred 
Cope—for every one was sick 
of the brutes—I bought some 
casts of hands and feet and had a big sum 
left, and during the Centennial summer, 
boiling hot days in the little upstairs 
back sitting room, I pegged away at what 
I was sure were masterpieces, to be sub- 
mitted for my admission to the Academy 
School, which was to open in the fall in 
the new building on Broad Street. Or I 
would wander with the boys, also loafing, 


AN EARLY WONDER OF WORK IN WHICH I WAS EVEN THEN INTERESTED 


from the source to the mouth of the creeks 
near by, the Wingohocking, Perkiomen, 
Wissahickon, playing all sorts of pranks 
by the way, from stealing apples to chas- 
ing cats or having stone fights with other 
boys; or in the back lots at home wallop- 
ing the ‘‘Satan”’ kids—they sell my prints 
now—or knocking the front teeth out 
of the Maguire gang with stones. These 
wicked, naughty boys were not, most of 
them, good little Friends. We alwayswon, 
or thought we did, these battles; we al- 
ways tan when anything happened, usu- 


[1876 ] 


36 CHAPTER IV - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


ally pursued by the other gang’s parents 
who threatened our parents.On Hallow- 
e’en we scared people stiff by setting up 
spooks in the graveyard or tying door- 
bells together, or going around with Jack- 
o’lanterns when we did not bob for apples 
ina tub at‘home. 

HE Old Logan house, Stenton, then 
lie was a favorite haunt. It was 
owned by the head of the family, a sort 
of Borgia it was said, who used to tramp 
round with a gun and threaten to shoot 
us. It was near the Browns’ big house 
and we would break in through the cellar 
windows and go upstairs and try to pry 
the Dutch tiles out of the chimney pieces, 
crawl behind the paneling of the walls, 
and hunt in the cellars for the entrance 
to the secret tunnel that led under the 
great avenue of trees beyond the box- 
hedged garden, to the graveyard. There 
was an open vault by the graves which 
we knew was the entrance to the tunnel, 
but we never dared go in and we never 
could find the exit in the house. But that 
tunnel was real to us—teal as the persim- 
mons in the garden. As I grew older I 
would wander by myself as far as the 
Wissahickon by the McGargie and Rit- 
tenhouse paper mills, where we had shied 
stones and mud in the pulp troughs by 
the roadside. Maybe that is why some of 
the paper is so bad when I try to print 
my etchings on it. Once I went away up 
Germantown Avenue to Cresheim Creek, 
winding then through open fields till it 
came to the glen and then the gorge 
which carries it to the Wissahickon. It 
was so beautiful that I sat down, all 
alone, and cried for the beauty of it. 
And then I tried to draw it. That beauty 
is gone and my drawing is gone, in the 
War, and now there are great sham Ital- 
ian palaces, big pictorial French chateaux 
and ladies’ swell studios, and winding 


paths, and school picnics and newspapers 
and the filth the new American breeds 
wherever he goes. And the difficulty of 
getting there is all that remains, if you 
have not gota car, and I have not. 
I SENT my drawings in to the Academy 
Schools and after months of waiting 
I was told I had not been admitted and 
asked to remove them. So sure was I of 
admission still, that I produced a number 
more imaginative marines in pen and ink, 
the result of our annual trip to Atlantic 
City; my father had them framed, and I 
sent them in to the first exhibition in the 
new building of the Academy. I got 
them back, too. This should have fin- 
ished me as an illustrator, but it only 
convinced me that I was right and the 
Academy was wrong, and that some day 
I would be an illustrator and prove it, 
and then they would receive me—and— 
well—not so long ago, they gave us, 
Mrs. Pennell and myself, a reception, 
with all Philadelphia on “‘the receiving 
line’’—and that was worse than being 
rejected, but even now they refuse to | 
hang my portrait, by John McLure Ham- 
ilton, though lam the only student in the 
last quarter of a century who has made a 
reputation. Some of the past students are 
more notorious locally and win more 
prizes annually, but that is their business. 
At that time the Academy entrance ex- 
amination was stiff and the tuition was 
free. And I believe, now that Ihave taught 


in both Europe and America, that such 


a system is better than the present one 
in most art schools where the entrance 
examination is a farce for those who can 
pay the school fees and then loaf their 
days away. 

po not believe in the modernart school. 
I If any one will study art, let him go to 
a master who can teach, and work with 
him, and learn the trade and the craft. 


[1876 } 


THE INDUSTRIAL ART SCHOOL - MY THEORIES OF STUDY Sy) 


If the student comes through, he becomes 
an artist. All other art schools should 
be abolished and art-school masters be 
allowed to starve or made to work, in- 
stead of fooling fools for the fees they 
get, if they make their classes pay. A 
master may run a school, but it should 
be a shop where the pupils from the be- 
ginning learn to do something. It is the 
only way to learn, the way of the past, 
when there were many trained crafts- 
men, and because of their training a few 
became artists. I know, for I have proved 
it—in my own classes. But to-day the 
average student only wants to learn 
enough to teach and to preach what he 
cannot practise, and so make a living 
and be called an artist. Most of the men 
only want to flirt with the girls in the 
lunch rooms and work enough to win 
the easily won prizes that have to be 
awarded, and the girls do the same— 
only they try to marry the men. They 
squander about ten thousand dollars a 
year now on prizes in the Pennsylvania 
Academy.Then not a cent was wasted that 
way. John Alexander told me that a 
woman once came to him and asked to 
be taken as a pupil. He said, ‘Madam, 
I do not take pupils.’’ “‘Oh, Mr. Alex- 
ander, I would only come one hour one 
day each week.”’ ‘‘Madam,”’ said he, “‘I 
have been working every hour every day 
every year of my life and I dont know 
enough yet.’ ‘‘Oh,”’ said she, ‘‘I dont 
want to do that: I only want to learn 
enough to teach.”’ 
M y chicken profits had not even been 
used up by a visit to Downingtown, 
where some of the family lived. On that 
trip I made endless drawings in the man- 
ner of Ropes—I could not get out of it— 
in pencil and white chalk on gray paper. 
And I mdde my first sale, one dollar paid 
me by Friend Jane E. Mason, the mother 


of some of the pupils at Germantown 
School, for a drawing of rocks on a hill- 
side near Downingtown. I also remem- 
ber I did a cider mill, an early Wonder 
of Work. I went on copying casts and 
drawings in the house, and making 
sketches out of doors—and my father 
kept me and my mother never said any- 
thing. I even tried to make comics for 
Harper’s WEEKLY and to force my way 
on to THE Dairy Grapuic of New York— 
the first American daily illustrated news- 
paper and still the only American daily 
in which large original drawings have 
been used to any extent—as a special 
correspondent capable of running to fires 
in Philadelphia. Once I went to some 
celebration at Valley Forge, and got up 
with the ‘‘special artists’ in their box— 
there were no ‘‘photo artists’, none of 
the tribe of “‘commercial artists’’, then— 
and I worked giddily until I was asked 
by some inquisitive fool what I was 
working for—then I was nearly thrown 
out and quite disgraced as an impostor 
by the real artists, who pointed to Frank 
H. Taylor, the official correspondent of 
Tue Grapuic. But he was decent to me 
then and afterwards, for he knew that I 
wanted to be an illustrator. 
VENTUALLY most of my chicken 
E money was spent and I was ashamed 
of loafing, and it was suggested that I 
should go into a furniture factory, whose 
owner, luckily, did not see why; then 
that I work in an architect’s office for 
nothing; but the architect wanted a pre- 
mium as well and my father did not see 
the reason for that. In this case, how- 
ever, America lost, for architects now 
are glad to welcome me as an Honorary 
Associate here and in Europe. Then Mr. 
J. B., the original Lippincott, thought 
I might come and stick stamps on his 
letters. This I refused—and now they 


[1877] 


38 


want my books. And then I tried to 
make designs for Dobson's carpet mills. 
All I had to do was, I was told, to draw 
flowers, and if I could have done that, I 
could have done more than most design- 
ers. But when I showed them the gera- 
nium, my flower that Richards liked, and 
some dock leaves and golden rod and dog- 
wood and skunk cabbages I drew because 
I liked them, they refused absolutely to 
have me. Finally, when I was quite con- 
vinced there was before me nothing but 
making drawings no one wanted, I was 
offered a post in the Philadelphia and 
Reading Coal and Iron Company’s office 
in Germantown, at a salary of seven dol- 
lars a week, to sell coal. I had, I admit, 
even then a contempt for business, but 
more for the American business man, who 
is always shoving his way into art by 
doing good to it and advertising himself. 
I commenced to prove my belief, other- 
wise I should have been a railroad presi- 
dent, which more than one of my contem- 
poraries, without half my brains, have 
become. It killed them, or else they have 
had to retire. As to retiring, I remember 
once, John Sargent, who was properly 
taught and had the brains to take advan- 
tage of it, is said to have told Miss Mary 
Cassatt, ‘I think I shall retire:’ ““Retire!”’ 
said Miss Cassatt, ‘‘I have heard of house 
painters retiring, but I never heard of an 
artist who wanted to.”’ 

Bout the same time that I started in 
A business, the Pennsylvania School of 


Industrial Art announced its opening ina. 


ramshackle building on Broad Street near 
Race. Isent in my rejected pen drawings and 
unappreciated flower sketches and neg- 
lected angel feet, and was accepted at once 
as a free scholar. Then my life began. I had 
to be at the coal office at seven in the morn- 
ing and calm Irish carters and coax expa- 
triated British cotton or woolen spinners 


CHAPTER IV : THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR | 


to buy coal, and steal their custom from our 
rivals. It was so easy for any but business 
men. And I had to stay in and around the 
office till six in the evening. At seven- 
thirty, I had to be at the school on North 
Broad Street, and I stayed there till it shut 
up at ten, and then I had to loaf in the 
streets orat the Ninthand Green Street De- 
pot till the eleven forty-five train took me 
back to Germantown. Under these condi- 
tions, I had not much energy to devote to 
coaland its distribution. But it seems that 
I increased the profits of the Company at 
our office. And when, after a year, my 
chief, Mr. Alkins, became ill, I ran the 
yard. But the final burst of glory came 
when, single-handed, I went through the 
railroad strike of 1877. During this strike 
there was in the Germantown Depot of 
the Reading Railroad a telegraph opera- 
tor we all knew as Billy Van Horne. Was 
he the picture collector, amateur painter, 
railroad magnate, and expatriated Amer- 
ican I afterwards used to hear of ? If so, 
I am responsible for his interest in art. 
But he too is dead of too much business. 

t the end of the strike I was promoted 
A to an office of my own at Chestnut 
Hill. As before my promotion, I had al- 
ready all the responsibility for the larger 
office and about as much as I wanted to 
do, I considered it a promotion down- 
ward, and in six days, despite the en- 
treaties of the Company and the staff, I re- 
signed and left. There was consternation 
in the main office, contemptuous surprise 
outside of it, and regret in the family. 
My father never said one word against it, 
never charged me one cent for my ex- 
penses, though I lived at home; but my 
aunts were horrified. So great was the 
commotion that the matter was discussed 
in Germantown Friends’ Meeting, I was 
told. I was also told that as Benjamin 
West, a Friend, had started ina log hut in 


[1878 ] 


a 


oS eevee 


ee a Pe ee ae ee ee 





Chester County and ended as President of 
the Royal Academy and by being buried in 
St. Paul’s Cathedral in London—though 
for this I do not know if he was not turned 
out of Meeting—if I really believed I 
ought to devote myself to illustration, 








_ THE INDUSTRIAL ART SCHOOL - IN BUSINESS 39 


Bryn Mawr College, caught me in the 
train and warned me that no one who had 
neither strength nor courage could ever 
do anything, even in art. He never knew 
how near I came to telling him what I 
thought of him and the people like him, 


S 


THE BRIDGE NEAR DOWNINGTOWN : MY FIRST LITHOGRAPH TO BE DRAWN ON ZINC WITH 
PEN AND LITHOGRAPHIC INK - PRINTED ON A PRESS IN GERMANTOWN AUGUST 21 1877 


the Meeting would not put any objections 
in my way. I scarcely see how they could, 
for, before this, Howard Pyle, Mary Hal- 
lock Foote and W. T. Smedley, all Friends, 
the last a member of the Philadelphia 
Yearly Meeting, had made their reputa- 
tions as illustrators and were making a 
living too. So why should I not try and 
see what I could do? This was the Meet- 
ing’s decision; but I shall never forget the 


_afternoon that Doctor James Rhoads, 


afterwards President of the Trustees of 


and of his running a college, even though 
he was an Overseer of Meeting. How 
little do such men, armed with health, 
strength, money, place and above all, ig- 
norance and conceit, understand those 
who have made up their minds, their real 
minds, to get something and get some- 
where, despite their physical and social 
drawbacks! That poor man, far as he was 
from imagining it, only increased my de- 
termination to succeed; and I have had to 
fight that sort of person all my life. But 


{1878 | 


40 CHAPTER IV - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


even as he talked to me, I remembered 
Poe and Stevenson and Homer and Mil- 
ton, and all the rest of the diseased who 
had courage if they had not the strength, 
though this is nothing to-day, when we 
only cultivate our arms and legs and 
starve our brains, and keep our bellies 
going on predigested food out of cold 
storage and soft drinks. 
HILE I was in business, many things 
ve happened. There were adventures in 
the office which never got outside of it. 
We had a wonderful yard foreman, an 
Irishman, the twin of Lincoln in face and 
figure. Carncross and Dixie brought out a 
turn with Lincoln in it, and our foreman 
was found and tried. The first night he 
was so scared that he made his exit 
through the scenery when the curtain 
went up; but after that he was a success, 
so much so that one day a most elegant 
gentleman appeared at the box office and 
bought the whole front row, saying, “‘I 
hope there will be nothing offensive to- 
night, for this row is engaged for the 
Gardners of Boston.”’ “‘Oh, no, sir,’’ said 
the box-office man. And when the cur- 
tain went up, there the Gardners were. 
All went well till Mr. Bones said to Mr. 
Jones, ‘I done hear such a funny story to- 
day.’ ‘‘Did yer, Mr. Bones?’’ “Yes, Mr. 
Jones. Well, it was like this, ha, ha—ha, 
ha, ha!’’ “‘Hol’ on,’’ Mr. Bones said to 
Mr. Jones, ‘‘am dat story all right?’’ 
“Why, Mr. Jones, yer done ast me such 
a thing?’’ ‘‘Why, Mr. Bones, dont yer, 
dont yer know de Gardners of Boston is 
here ?’’ The Gardners’ exit was superb.: 
uT the best of all was my break. I was 
Bae being complimented by the 
management, and one day as I was tiredly 
hearing the compliments of the manager, 
the postman shied a big package from the 
head office on the desk. The manager tore 
it open. ‘‘Hum, caught thee at last!’’ And 


after looking it over, he said, ““Thee has, 
I see, left a date out of thy report and so 
they have sent the papers back’’—those 
big, senseless, business sheets that any 
real business man would dispense with. 
‘‘What’s thee got to say to that?”’ ““Well’; 
said I, ‘‘I’ve got to say that if the fool on 
Fourth Street had had the sense to add 
the date himself and initial it, when all 
the others were properly filled out, he 
would not have stopped making up the 
accounts for two days and cost the com- 
pany six cents for postage.’’ “‘Hum,’’ said 
the manager again. I learned afterward 
that ‘‘the smart Aleck’’, as the manager 
called him, was Harrison S. Morris, later 
novelist, millionaire, poet; but we did not 
know at that time how we should de- 
velop, or I should. They promoted me; 
I do not know if they turned him out. I 
did not know him then, a clerk too. 
THER adventures had nothing to do 
with work, for even in a railroad 
office, as in all offices, hours come when 
there is nothing to do; at any rate, they 
came to my office. I used them for draw- 
ing. I bought a paint box and tubes of 
ivory black and flake white, and every- 
thing about the place was put down on 
brown paper in black and white. At . 
night, when I stayed home, I practised 
on the family. I made one drawing of my 
Aunt Beulah, in Friends’ dress, her char- 
acter in it, and it proved very interesting. 
It disappeared, destroyed in the senseless 
War. Then I would get days off. And my 
etching began, or it had begun before that. 
When Ropes showed me a plate he had 
made on glass at Tivoli, | went to Hinkle’s, 
the photographer on Main Street, and had 
one prepared, and on it I drew and Hinkle 
printed a view of Stenton, as I have told. 
This, I believe, is my first etching, cer- 
tainly the first exhibited, for it was put 
in Hinkle’s window. So far as I know, 


[1878 | 





COAL BREAKER AT WILKES-BARRE PENNSYLVANIA + LITHOGRAPH MADE FOR THE UNITED 
STATES FUEL DEPARTMENT DURING THE WAR I9I17 + THE ORIGINAL IS IN THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS AT WASHINGTON +: SHOWING DEVELOPMENT OF THE WONDER OF WORK 





_—- 


THE INDUSTRIAL ART SCHOOL - CHARLES M. BURNS 43 


not a copy was sold, though the photog- 
rapher published it, and I really believe 
he was an honest publisher. But it did 
have one good result. It introduced me, 
through its exhibition, to Colin Camp- 
bell Cooper, who became a painter. He 
and his brother Sam, who became a prig, 
were issuing a paper devoted to German- 
town affairs—THE GERMANTOWN SOCIAL. 
He gave me a commission, for the pure 
glory of seeing myself in print, to makea 
drawing with lithographic ink on a zinc 
plate. Ifit came out in the magazine, this 
was my first published appearance. The 
lithographer had a place in a back yard 
on Queen Street, Germantown, almost op- 
posite to where Alexander and Birge and 
Butler Harrison lived, though I did not 
know them then. Still, I had not much 
time for work and experiment except in 
the evenings at the School of Industrial 
Art, where there was a great deal too 
much mechanical and too little industrial 
art for my taste, and there were consider- 
able differences of opinion between the 
mathematical professor and myself. 
ee was one professor, Charles M. 
Burns, who taught everything save 
decoration and geometry. He taught us 
how to use our eyes and how to use our 
tools, and he made us do work outside and 
criticized not only our work but the way 
we did it. Most of the students could not 
stand his criticisms, and he could not 
stand them, and so the class dwindled. A 
few of the students were not discouraged 
when they brought in a drawing which 
they thought fine, and said, “‘I did that 
standing up,’’ and ‘Oh, well,’’ said the 
professor, ‘there is nothing wonderful in 
that! Why didnt you do it standing on 
your head?”’ Or when one had elaborately 
blocked in a whole figure and was very 
proud of it, he was told, ‘“‘I know a man 
who dont block in anything—just be- 


gins with the head and goes right down 
to the feet, and draws miles better than 
you.’ A few of us did like, or submitted 
to, his criticisms and spent all the time 
we could in his class. I even managed to 
get days off from the office, though I 
wonder now that I was not sacked for it. 
And we would go to Burns’ office on Wal- 
nut Street. He was an architect, the only 
real modern architect Philadelphia has 
had, utterly unknown to the city, but his 
Convent at Cornwalls lives. He would 
show us things about etching. Once he 
drew a design ona grounded brass plaque, 
filled it with acid and went home. In the 
morning not only was the plaque etched 
through, but the floor and the ceiling of 
the room beneath. 
Wee formed a little group within the 
class and sketched allover the town, 
from the Museum of Industrial Art to 
Cramp’s Shipyard and the coal wharves in 
Kensington, and etchings were made of 
them ; mine were all destroyed in the War. 
Long beforethis, my father, whoreally had 
aninterest inthe Wonder of Work,had been 
out to the oil regions of Pennsylvania 
and had taken me to the coal regions up 
around Tamaqua and Mahanoy City, and 
Mauch Chunk, and I had made drawings 
of breakers and mines, all gone in the War. 
S o the love of drawing work, for work's 
sake, was born in me, not “‘borne in 
upon me’’, as Friends say. And in my first 
article, ‘‘In the Mash’’, in THz Century, 
there is an oil refinery, and in the Beth- 
lehem article, the second, are the steel 
works. Schwab and I must have debutted 
about the same time. Once I showed him 
an etching of the Edgar Thompson Works 
at Bessemer, and he said, “‘One day I 
looked down on those works, from the 
same point, and I determined to get in— 
I started as a water boy but in five—was 
it?—years I was general manager.’ But 


[1878 } 


44 CHAPTER IV - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


he never thanked me for the proof of the 
etching I sent him, and as for his picture 
gallery! In fact, Schwab is just lucky. He 
is never tired of telling you so—‘ ‘Happy,’ 
he calls it. But he simply hung on to Car- 
negie as that canny man hung on to any- 
thing handy, and they could not help get- 
ting rich, their only aim, the aim of all 
great Americans of their sort. Schwab has 
a few good stories which he tells over and 
over. I dont know how often he got them 
off during the War. There was one of the 
time he and Carnegie were going to the 
Pennsylvania State College to get degrees 
—there was a reason—and he came into 
their sleeping car to dress as the train got 
near, and he found their valet wedged un- 
der a bureau. ‘“What’s the matter, John?” 
said Schwab. The valet wriggled out. “‘I 
am leaving,’ ’said he.‘’Why?’’ said Schwab. 
‘Because I aint going to slave for two 
millionaires what's only got one collar 
button between ‘em, and they lost that!’’ 
The coal mines then were run by English 
and Welsh miners and they would tell 
me in the coal office, that if I was sent up 
there, to go to the house of the English 
boss, for he would feed me on chicken and 
champagne in a clean parlor, and not to 
the American hotel, where I should have 
bacon rinds and whisky in a dirty dining 
room. Now the mines are mismanaged 
by golfing presidents and run by strik- 
ing mongtels from ‘‘mittel Europa’, and 
when I was there the other day I saw 
minarets and domes and spires of all the 
religious sects—save the Jews, who dont 
work with their hands—all over the land- 
scape, and I found signs in three languages, 
none of which I could read, and when I 
asked a real American if he knew Ger- 
man, French, Italian—‘‘Nope, none of them 
jaw rattles; but I do know Polack, Slovac, 
Roosac—them goes here.’’ He had almost 
forgotten his American. 


Nn our sketching expeditions from the 
school, a fellowstudent,G.D.Gideon, 
who was in a publisher’s office, usually 
went, and he drew much better than I. 
Harry McCarter was in the class, but he 
never prowled about, even then his feeling 


_for decoration and his compositions were 


the admiration and amazement of us all. 
So was his modesty; but he quickly forgot 
that and now is looked up to by the elect of 
Philadelphia, instead of downon,as he then 
was by the select. Every time there was a 
fire, after the school closed, Gideon and I, 
forgetting offices to-morrow, ran to it and 
made sketches. Why only fires appealed to 
us as subjects for illustration, Idonot know. 
When the sketches were made, they were 
posted at once to editors. So far as I re- 
member, not one was ever printed; but 
in those days editors did more editing 
and not infrequently a note of encourage- 
ment accompanied the returned drawing. 
One night, as we came out of school, we 
saw a splendid blaze downtown and we 
ran down Arch Street to find it oppo- 
site Friends’ Meeting House. Here was 
a chance. I was a Friend, the hose was 
going in the big gate, and we could go too 
and work from the wall. “‘John Jones,’ 
said I to the caretaker who was keeping 
the gate, ‘‘Thee knows me. Please let me 
in. Thee knows I am a Friend!’’ And he 
answered, ‘‘No, I dont and I wont, and I 
dont care a damn if thee is.’ Gideon 
laughed. No sketch was made from the 
Meeting House Yard that night. 
D URING the first year of my evening 
class at the Art School, two things 
happened. I bought a bicycle, which in 
many ways helped me, and, in more, hin- 
dered me. And I made my first etching on 
copper. How I found the money or the 
time to do either, Ido not know. But the 
head of the office was most kind, perhaps 
because he knew that little Friends of that 


{1878 } 





CHARLES M. BURNS ARCHITECT - PROFESSOR OF DRAWING AND DESIGN AT THE PENNSYL- 
VANIA SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL ART UNDER WHOM I STUDIED 1877-1879 - BY WAYMAN ADAMS 
PAINTING MADE ABOUT I9I7 - IN THE MEANTIME BURNS DID MUCH GOOD ARCHITECTURAL 
WORK IN AND AROUND PHILADELPHIA - A NOTABLE EXAMPLE IS THE CONVENT AT CORNWALLS 


46 CHAPTER IV - THE ADVENTURES OR AN TELUSTRATOER 


period were without vice, on the surface. 
I never smoked, drank, or saw the inside 
of a theater till I was twenty. Of course, 
I had smoked corn husks and reeds—and 
drunk hard cider. There is no priggish- 
ness or vittue in this; it is merely a fact. 
Whether Gerome Ferris or Fred Waugh 
went to the Industrial Art School, I do 
not remember. I think Ferris did, for dur- 
ing the year he took me to his father’s 
studio on Chestnut Street and I came into 
another new world. Ferris, his son, and 
his two nephews, the Morans, Percy and 
Leon, were soaked in modern Spanish art. 
Ferris, the father, owned Fortuny’s etch- 
ings and photogravures after Rico; he had 
copied Fabres and Casanova; he talked of 
the Fortunys and Ricos in the Gibson and 
Johnson collections, and we went to see 
them, and I think he knew Madame For- 
tuny. Not only had the illustrators and 
engravers of Europe acknowledged this 
groupof Spaniards as masters, butthrough 
the help of Ferris, who was always ready 
to show his things, Blum, Brennan and 
Lungren, the most brilliant, the most 
skilled craftsmen and illustrators America 
has produced, were enabled to form their 
style. They studied for a while in Phila- 
delphia. They came from Cincinnati—and 
stopped in Philadelphia to work with 
Eakins—why Blum and Lungren left the 
Middle-West I do not know, but I heard 
that Brennan, who was on a paper, was 
sent down the Ohio to draw a steamboat 
explosion, but he stopped on the way and 
when he got there only the smokestack 
was sticking out above the water—he did 
that, but he left the paper and came East. 

TEPHEN Ferris had more to do with 
Sie founding of the best period of Amer- 
ican illustration and engraving and print- 
ing than he himself had any idea of. Be- 
sides showing me all this Spanish work, 
an inspiration for what I was soon to do 


—I somehow had the brains to take ad- 
vantage of it—he showed me the tech- 
nique of etching, and little in etching that 
he taught me have I since had to unlearn. 
I never saw him etch but once or twice, 
and then he did a whole plate before me 
and explained, by practice, everything. 
I started to makea plate. My first subject 
on copper was an old mill near Wister’s 
Dam, and on my big flat desk in the office, 
amid reports, schedules and forms of the 
Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron 
Company, the plate was bitten. The desk 
was burned, my clothes were ruined—and 
I was not sacked but got a day off and 
rushed down to the printers in Dock Street 
and stood by while a proof was pulled. 
One day I dropped some acid on my stock- 
ing and never knew it until I founda hole 
in my foot and my shoe full of blood. 
S UMMER came and I went to Dingman’s 
Ferry and encountered a relic of the 
Hudson River School at work there, and 
under his influence made, Iam certain, the 
worst water color ever seen. I also made, 
away from his influence, an etching or 
two. They are destroyed and, luckily, 
so is the water color. But I found my- 
self the hero of a story. One morning I 
was sketching a frame house beyond a 
field, a woman came out of the house and 
looked over the fence, and a man joined 
her. Then, picking up a pitchfork and 
keeping the fence between us, and follow- 
ing round the field until he got behind 
me, he looked at the drawing and re- 
marked, so it could be heard all over the 
ten-acre lot, ‘‘Nope, M’riar, he aint mad; 
he’s only makin’ maps!’ As it was impor- 
tant that I should finish my water color, 
I stayed about a week over my vacation 
time—and yet was not sacked; stayed 
while the trees turned, and at last came 
back in the early morning stage, thick 
frost on the trees and ground, to the 


[1879 } 





ait ¢ 


PbS INDUSIRIAL ART SCHOOL - EXPELLED A] 





Bs. 


STUDIES AT THE INDUSTRIAL ART SCHOOL 


Water Gap, stopping for a breakfast of 
buckwheat cakes and coffee in the dawn. 
How it warmed me; how good it was. 
Now one could not get breakfast, or 
would shiver on cereals and force—"‘pre- 
digested food’’ Maxfield Parrish called it 
—the best thing he ever said or did. All 
the while I was sadly thinking of the 
pretty girls I had left behind me at the 
Ferry; though I was deadly afraid of girls 
when I grew up, they were always nice to 
look at and to think about. 

HE Art School opened again in the fall 
T and we allturned up, the little set who 
worked with Professor Burns, and they, 
before long, under my leadership, refused 
to have anything to do with the mechan- 
ical master, or as little as possible. We 
were undoubtedly working to get the 
most we could out of the school, accord- 


ing to our lights, but we were undoubt- 
edly in open mutiny. The first thing I 
knew I was called up one night by Pro- 
fessor Burns and told either that I must 
leave the place or that the mechanical 
end of the school must, and he thought it 
easier to get rid of me; but if I liked, he 
had arranged it, having shown my work, 
I could enter the Antique Class at the 
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 
the next evening. I had escaped; peace 
was with honor; I still had the Professor 
as a friend, and had till he died. I had 
triumphed over the Academy and the 
Professor of Mechanical Drawing. I al- 
ways trample on such people. I do not 
suppose a more conceited prig could be 
found, even in Philadelphia, than I was. 


Tue Pennsytvania Mustum anp Scnoor or Inpusraiat Akt, 


MeMoxIAL Hart, FAImMOUNT Paxk, 
Philadelphia, Dror 2 AATF? 


Ae Le. A cote ash 
eoferrece eines ee oe PIII 


feck Pit fececelecl oA feng ree Ke. 


Fo Ae AP eee fy ferme 
pase “¢ Cater or gree Facet « 
ae pe PBS oe ee 

Agius : 


A forere > atts 
Decent) fecconee ogee! Cesta 


Mrcoriece FERC Cee ren-th eZ, 


Zz 0 Cee ee eae a ANS ’ elk va . 
ee 


cS Chr e es 


Ae 


NOTICE OF MY EXPULSION FROM THE SCHOOL 
OF INDUSTRIAL ART - NOVEMBER 27 1879 


[1879 | 


48 CHAPTER JV - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILUUSTRATOR 


ut the results were disastrous for the 
B Industrial Art School. Nearly all the 
best pupils left for the Academy. How 
they got in, I do not know; but before 
long there we all were, and for another 


és : : 
a 
vy 





year the little group held together. Now 
my name appears in the Industrial Art 
School catalogue as an alumnus of that 
antiquated state supported institution. 


AT CARNCROSS AND DIXIE’S WHEN THE GARDNERS CAME TO THE SHOW 
DRAWN DURING BUSINESS HOURS AT THE COAL YARD OFFICE IN 1878 





CHAPTER V: IN THE ACADEMY SCHOOL: STUDYING 
WITH EAKINS - HIS TEACHING AND LECTURING -: MY EXPE 
RIENCES IN SCHOOL - MY FIRST COMMISSION - I WORK FOR 
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY - MAKE DRAWINGS FOR HARPERS 





Ee ee vi 
OLD MILL AT GERMANTOWN : ONE OF MY FIRST ETCHINGS 1880 * PRINTED IN THE PENNSYL- 
VANIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ’S JOURNAL - ANOTHER EARLY WONDER OF WORK IN PHILADELPHIA 


HERE were some weeks between 

my leaving the Industrial Art 

School for the Academy Schools 

and my resigning from the coal 
office; besides, at the Industrial School, I 
broke down but went on working—differ- 
ent from my students nowadays! We did 
not know what “‘nervous breakdowns’’ 
were. At first in the Academy I worked 
only at night. I suppose I had to sign 
papers before Corliss, the Secretary, and 
Whipple, the Curator, introduced me. 
And I am also sure Henry, the colored 
janitor, did something else. But there was 
no hazing. I just sat down beside a man 
named Wimbush, an Englishman; he was 
the swell draughtsman. Years later he 


had a studio under Whistler's in Fitzroy 
Street, London, and there I met him 
again, and that is all I know of him. 
Wimbush was drawing from the cast, and 
I went at one, too. I could not say whose 
head then, nor can I now, but it was one 
of those old Romans who look exactly 
like the average American, just as brutal 
and puffy and stupid and shaven. Howells 
pointed this out to me in the Uffizi when 
I was working with him in Italy. And 
there is a whole row of Roman senators 
or American toughs in a corridor of the 
British Museum; under them Rome fell 
and we are going the same way. After a 
night or so, the Professor was brought 
into the classroom by his daughter or 


{ 1880 | 


50 CHAPTER V - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Whipple. Whipple, the Curator, was little 
and black and hairy and lame. The Pro- 
fessor was little and white and bald, made 
like that, the students said, by eating the 
ends of tubes of white lead as a steady 
diet. What Whipple had done I do not 
know, or what had been done to him. By 
the time the Professor had ceased compli- 
menting Wimbush and been helped to his 
feet, I was thoroughly scared. He just 
glanced at my work. Of course, it was 
vile, the first head I had ever attempted 
from the antique at night. He said, ‘Vy 
you dry do improve on der gast!’’ and 
was helped on. That criticism, which I 
have no doubt the old man had got off 
hundreds of times before, would have 
done most students good; it did me harm. 
Had he taken the same trouble to tell me 
where my work was bad, even if all over, 
as he did to praise the self-evident, slick, 
superficial correctness of the prize stu- 
dent, it might have been of some use to 
both of us, certainly to Wimbush. How- 
ever, the Professor and Wimbush have 
disappeared ; I still rest. I knew the Pro- 
fessor’s name, but not his work. After 
that I had no respect for him personally, 
no admiration for his pictures when I saw 
them later, though they were better than 
those of some of his better known con- 
temporaries. His criticism was not criti- 
cism, for I was trying, though all wrongly. 
What was he there for? What did he do? 
He offended me, he did not teach me, and 
after that Wimbush patronized me. But 
before the Professor had tottered to the 
next easel, I had made up my mind that I 
would never be treated like that by him 
again, and he never got the chance. I 
went out when he came in to criticize. So 
far as I can remember, I never saw the 
Professor again. At that time there could 
not have been twenty-five students in the 
night Antique, and if we had enough abil- 


ity, or, as in my case, pull, if you choose, 
to gain admission, it was his duty to en- 
courage, or discourage, not to insult us. 
I have never forgotten the shame of that 
night, for the school snickered. That old 
man did me a wrong. Criticism may be 
brutal, but it should never be insolent. I 
try not to insult my students, though they 
tell me sometimes they expect I will. One 
of them whom I fired told me I had. 
oon I joined the day Antique where 
S there was another and different sort of 
Professor—Thomas Eakins. On his advice 
to paint, I sailed in, in black and white 
oils on the Ilysus. Somehow that went 
better, and something in the painting or 
drawing, for I was merely drawing in 
monochrome with paint blindly, ap- 
pealed to the Professor and he sent me to 
the Life Class, which he also directed. 
The others, Fred Stokes, Gerome Ferris 
and Fred Waugh, were left alone to learn 
to draw. I, in those days, was far too 
clever to have to do this. Poor me. 
4p HERE was no initiation to the Life 
Class, either. One just went in at the 
beginning of the pose, drew a number, 
sat down and began to work. Everybody 
painted, but I started in with pen and ink. 
The class stared. In it at that time was 
Philip Hahs, whom every one thought a 
genius and continued to think so until he 
died, very soon after; how many geniuses 
go that way; A. B. Frost, an old student; 
T. Anshutz, who became Eakins’ succes- 
sor; Charles Fromuth; J. J. Boyle; and 
half a hundred, probably more, some of 
whose names I never knew, and of few, I 
fear,even the small world of Philadelphia 
ever heard. Everything was free once the 
examination was passed—Life, Antique, 
Modeling, Composition Classes, and Lec- 
tures. There were no prizes, no paid or 
free scholarships, no traveling purses. If 
a student got hard up, and lots did, he 


{ 1880 } 





C 


THOMAS EAKINS PROFESSOR AT THE PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS PHILADELPHIA 
DIPLOMA PORTRAIT BY HIMSELF IN THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN NEW YORK CITY 


52 CHAPTER V - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


disappeared or he posed to us; we thought 
nothing of that. Quaint things happened, 
but they concern nobody save those who 
lived and learned in the school. There 
were Doctor Keen’s anatomy lectures, 
when a skeleton, a stiff and a model, and 
the darky Henry, all jerked and jumped 
together when a battery was turned on. 
Henry yelled. Eakins gave comparative 
lectures at which all the Trustees turned 
up. They would have been thought lurid 
in Paris schools, but not by us in Phila- 
delphia. I once a few years ago talked to 
the students of the Academy, but I was 
not asked again by the Directors. I often 
am asked by the Fellowship. It is a queer 
feeling to talk in the old lecture room 
where I heard Seymour Haden and Keen. 
I Gort it soon. Never had a big pen draw- 

ing been set before the astonished eyes 
of the Professor, back from the Beaux 
Arts, Gérdme, and the Hospitals. He did 
go for it, and there was reason. But so 
mad was I, that ever after, during the 
year or so I was supposed to belong to the 
class, when he came in the room or just 
before, I went out. This was weak and 
silly on my part, but Iam not one of those 
who can work in a crowd of students or 
study in a crowd, or be criticized in a 
crowd, or criticize a crowd of my stu- 
dents. Naturally, Eakins, as he had done 
everything to shove me forward, resented 
my conduct. I wonder he did not expel 
me. But when, a little later, an article was 
prepared for Scrrpner’s, on the school, 
illustrated by the students, I, the predes- 
tined illustrator, was kept carefully out 
of it, as I am often kept out of things 
now by his little nagging successors in 
other places. The Professor did not for- 
give me until almost the end, when, a 
few years ago, we met after I had helped 
to get him a first-class medal for his won- 
derful Gross portrait at an International 


Exhibition; and he knew it. He was old 
and broken, scarce able to talk, but he 
put his hand on my shoulder and said, 
‘‘T made a mistake.’’ ‘“No, I did,”’ said I; 
and he smiled, and it was over, and that 
was the last time I saw him; but we were 
friends till he died. The Academy has a set 
of my Panama Pictures, hidden away some- 
where, but the Institution did not make 
this fortunate investment; it was some 
friends of mine who presented the litho- 
graphs. Our only expenses at the school 
were lunch and dinner and our materials to 
work with, and, for me, railroad tickets. 
When we did not bring something to eat 
from home, we just ran across the street 
to the ‘‘pie foundry’’ and bought, for five 
cents, the pie of the day that had the 
name we preferred, for they all tasted 
alike. Another meal, and a most substan- 
tial one, for the same price, consisted of 
three cents’ worth of bananas and two 
cents’ worth of crackers. Once a restau- 
rant started close by where we could get 
clam chowder for five cents, but it soon 
failed; it was too popular. The older men 
tackled the free lunch at the “‘beer foun- 
dry’’, but we younger students did not 
dare to. When we were hungry and had 
no money, we didnt eat till we got home. 
It is easy enough not to; if you have a 
strong will, the strong stomach comes; 
but I am afraid the process tries it. As 
our London charwoman used to say, ‘Vy, 
ve ‘as to git used not to h’eatin’.’’ Some- 
times when we were not hard up, or not 
hungry, we gave hunks—not slices—of 
pie to those who were, and when we 
were all very flush, we shied the stuff all 
over the place. I was not in the school 
by any means long enough to use up my 
money my father had saved for me while 
I was in the office. He and I found that 
one can buy railroad season tickets and 
bicycles and artists’ materials and work 


{ 1880 | 





THE ACADEMY SCHOOL - THE COMING OF THE NIGGER 53 


eighteen hours a day, and save money, 
even when one is paid only one dollar a 
day for staying eleven hours in an office. 
I have no idea how I did it, or howhe 
did, but he saved my money. There was 
enough to live on at home, attend the art 
school and ride my bicycle, and Isoon 
began to make a little more. 
I F there was no hazing at the Academy, 
there was plenty of noise. We sang, 

they smoked, we had processions, all 
made a fearful row when the weekly pose 
was changed and pushed over rows of 
canvasses ‘‘butter side’’ down, and the 
many did all those things they ought 
not to have done and the few tried to do 
just what they should have done, when 
they were left alone. Songs, composed 
by no one knew who, relating to every- 
one in the school, were sung in and out 
of tune by a chorus of everybody, and a 
new verse frequently caused a riot be- 
tween the subject and the singers. As 
there was no monitor, this was easily 
quelled by the rest of the class, who 
always sided against the subject and 
beat him with mahlsticks. If this did 
not settle him, he was strait-jacketed 
in his own canvas. I remember only one 
verse of one song: 
‘““Now there is George Thomson Hobbs, 

He used to be one of the nobs, 

But since he’s got married 

No longer he’s tarried, 
That poor George Thomson Hobbs.”’ 
For some unknown reason it always drove 
Hobbs to fury, so we sang it only when 
we wanted a real good row. And we got 
the row always. 

ut the great excitement, apart from 

Bine wrath of Whipple, the Curator, 
the fainting of the female models, which 
happened every day, owing to masks and 
heat and smoke—some one, however, al- 
ways grabbed the lady as she fell—the 


descent of the Secretary with threats of 
expulsion, the dissections of the stiff that 
was kept in a little room on the stairs 
and smelt horribly of chemicals, and the 
endless inventions in his lectures of the 
Professor, was the advent of The Nigger. 
There was every kind of man and boy, 
from sixty to twenty, in that class, ex- 
cept black men, and one day the Chair- 
man of the School Committee appeared 
after a solemn announcement that he was 
coming. His usual way was to drop in 
without warning, often so quietly that 
we did not know he was in the room un- 
til some one would trample on him in 
the dark behind the screen. It usually hap- 
pened when there was a female model. 
But this time the Chairman came in state, 
accompanied by the Secretary, other mem- 
bers of the Committee, and the Profes- 
sor. And he said something like this. A 
drawing has been sent in and passed. The 
person who made it has been notified that 
he is admitted to the school. He has come 
and the Secretary has seen him. He is a 
colored man. Now there is no rule in the 
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts ex- 
cluding people of color from the schools. 
But, knowing the feeling on the subject, 
I have placed the matter before the An- 
tique Class; and I wish the Life Class to 
meet and decide whether he should be 
admitted. We met, and we decided that 
we had no objection. Ido not remember a 
dissenting voice. He came, he was young, 
an octoroon, very well dressed, far better 
than most of us. His wool, if he had any, 
was cropped so short you could not see 
it, and’ he. had Was nice wmustache mac 
worked at night in the Antique, and, last 
of all, he drew very well. I do not think 
he stopped long in the Antique—the 
faintest glimmer of any artistic sense in 
a student, and he was run right into the 
Life. He was quiet and modest, and he 


{ 188x } 


54 CHAPTER V - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


‘‘painted too,’’ it seemed, “‘among his 
other accomplishments.’’ We were inter- 
ested at first, but he soon passed almost 
unnoticed, though the room was hot. 
Little by little, however, we were con- 


scious of a change. I can hardly explain, . 


but he seemed to want things; we seemed 
in the way, and the feeling grew. One 
night we were walking down Broad 
Street, he with us, when from a crowd of 
people of his color who were walking up 
thestreet,camea grecting, ‘Hullo,George 
Washington, howse yer gettin’ on wid 
yer white fren’s?’’ Then he began to 
assert himself and, to cut a long story 
short, one night his easel was carried 
out into the middle of Broad Street and, 
though not painfully crucified, he was 
firmly tied to it and left there. And this 
is my only experience of my colored 
brothers in a white school; but it was 
enough. Curiously, there never has been 
a great Negro or a great Jew artist in the 
history of the world. The only “‘black 
man’’—and he called himself a Moor— 
was Del Mazo. Rembrandt and Turner 
were accused of being Jews but they never 
admitted it during their lives, if both 
apparently did some funny tricks in their 
dealings and created dealers. 

HAD not been out of the office a week, 

nor was I yet in the Life Class, when 
I got my first commission, given me by 
Charles Wister of Germantown, Owen 
Wister’s uncle. It was for two pen draw- 
ings at ten dollars each. One was made 
in his garden; the other was of the front 
of his house, which I have often drawn 
since. I never knew how, in the seclu- 
sion of his beautiful home on Main 
Street, he ever heard of me. The import- 
ant thing was that he liked the draw- 
ings, though, from contemporary exam- 
ples I have unearthed, I should say they 
were vile. I have since seen them in his 


house, and they were vile; but his name, 
not mine, was signed on each. The rest of 
Germantown was amazed, as I intended 
it should be, on learning that in my first 
weck of illustrating existence, I had made 
in two days as much as I could in two 
weeks at the office. This is not a financial 
record of my profits and losses, or of the 
income to be gained by illustration, facts 
useful only to tax collectors and commer- 
cial artists, though endlessly quoted in 
the lives and doings of the prosperous and 
preposterous as incentives for correspond- 
ence school incompetents, and newspaper 
paragraphs. I went into illustration be- 
cause I wanted to; that my work was 
wanted from the beginning was a curse to 
me. But there was, evidently, no escape. 
I did not try for commissions, but they 
came to me, and they still come, I am 
glad and proud to say. 
D. STONE, the Librarian of the Penn- 
. sylvania Historical Society, moved 
out to Fisher’s Lane, our street, to live 
and through his son, even before I was 
in the office, I got to know him. He had 
what seemed to me an enormous collec- 
tion of prints in scrapbooks, and he 
showed them to me. His son and Mantle 
Fielding, who became an architect and 
cared for the Colonial—I believe he 
found it too difficult and fell to criti- 
cism—would come in night after night, 
and we would go over them together. 
I later brought my drawings and etch- 
ings to Stone, and he introduced me to 
a historian named Townsend, the suc- 
cessor of Watson the annalist, who was 
preparing a series of articles on German- 
town Road for the Historical Society’s 
Journal, and through Stone I was com- 
missioned by the Society to make draw- 
ings and etchings to illustrate them. 
These began to appear in the Journal 
and with their appearance I began my 


{188x } 





a 





THE PLOW INN YARD SECOND STREET PHILADELPHIA - ONE OF MANY OLD INNS LIKE THOSE 


IN ENGLAND WHICH EXISTED TILL THE COUNTRY WENT DRY AND LIFE BECAME DREARY 
ETCHING MADE IN 1881 AND PUBLISHED LATER IN THE MAGAZINE AMERICAN ETCHINGS 














THE ACADEMY SCHOOL - THE ILLUSTRATION OF THE PAST 57 


career as an illustrator. They ran for sev- 
eral months, and in the middle of it all 
I was invited to an anniversary dinner 
of the Society at the Academy of Music 
and I assisted at my first banquet. Now 
I am not asked to their functions and 
my drawings are not wanted in the His- 
torical Society Collection; and when I 
offered them some from Our PuitaDEL- 
puta, the answer was, ‘Did I think they 
had nothing better to spend their money 
on?’ I wonder if they kept the early 
ones I made for them. 
Ix my drawings it can be seen how 
much, even then, I had studied and 
tried to imitate the technique of Rico 
and Fortuny. Vierge’s work, curiously, 
I did not know till long after—and to 
think that I should edit and arrange his 
PasLo DE Secovia. But I thank Heaven 
I had such good and sound technical 
masters of the art of pen drawing for 
reproduction. The pen drawings by these 
men and Casanova, Fabres and Vierge, 
reproduced by Gillot in Paris and his 
partner, or assistant, Chefdeville, from 
1870 to 1880, have never been surpassed 
and are not approached now. The reasons 
are simple. The draughtsmen, engravers, 
printers of this group were brilliant art- 
ists who loved their work, taking a 
pride in it; they worked together, the 
draughtsmen with the engravers and 
printers at the press; and they were not 
plagued by ignorant cheap shopkeepers 
—I mean art editors and ad. men, and 
publishers from whom are recruited most 
of the officers of the companies and syn- 
dicates which run publications to-day— 


who know just what the publicwants | 


and dump the cheapest and nastiest that 
can be had on a long-suffering world, 
Still, I must be just. I believe many edi- 
tors and art editors are as honest as they 
are ignorant. More, however, are sweat- 


ers and ruled by their lust for advertise- 
ments. A few, a very few, try to get good 
work. But to-day American illustration 
is the most contemptible and artless in 
the world, and most American engrav- 
ing and printing a joke; the graphic arts, 
like the country, are dry, flat, degenerate. 
and the overlord is the trade union, all 
bow to that. Little of my time, during the 
day, was after this spent in the schools. 
I still went at night and endured the envy 
of the less fortunate. Ilustrating, de- 
spised by the Professor, held in contempt 
by painters, looked down upon by the 
students, was not then the favorite path 
along which the incompetent could 
struggle or promenade, yet the painters 
were only making colored illustrations, 
mostly rotten. But when I began to get 
going, I found that the painters were 
willing enough to come to me, to whom 
they had scarce spoken before, for tips 
about work. I believed, as I do now, 
that illustration is a most serious, a most 
important form of art—a form of art in 
which we Americans have made a greater 
international reputation than in any 
other. Really, though, all art is illus- 
tration and always has been from the 
beginning of time until now, when it 
has become the prey of incompetent com- 
mercial artists, cubists, expressionists who 
have nothing to express or illustrate and 
so fall back on cheap tricks and cheap 
blither and cheap critics to sell their worth- 
less wares—and call them new art, know- 
ing nothing of art. 

T this time Abbey and Reinhart, in- 
A telligent Americans in Europe, and 
Howard Pyle, a struggling, self-made, 
misguided medizevalist in America—but 
his Colonial drawings are fine—had won 
international reputations for themselves 
and done work they never surpassed. 
Brennan, the finest technician of America, 


{| 188x } 


58 CHAPTER V - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Blum and Lungren were carrying on the 
Spanish tradition, and now that I have 
looked her up again, I find that Mary 
Hallock Foote was one of our best illus- 
trators. Frost was combining humor 
with drawing, the comics not having 
yet set the degraded fashion the Ameri- 
can loves. Jungling, Wolf, Cole, Kings- 
ley and Whitney were proving that wood 
engraving in the hands of artists is an 
art. La Farge, the only decorator then 
in the United States, was illustrating, 
and St. Gaudens was not above carving 
illustrations, nor Stanford White above 
lettering and layouts. It was the paint- 
ers who could not paint and the business 
man who could not understand—and 
never can—who held illustration in con- 
tempt, probably never having heard of 
Mantegna, Botticelli, Diirer, Rembrandt, 
Blake, Menzel, the Men of the Sixties; 
or, if they had a faint glimmer of an idea 
that there had been such artists, know- 
ing nothing of them as great illustrators, 
illustration then, as now, including all 
forms of engraving. But it was certainly 
more ambitious, more intelligent, more 
vital, not merely financial. And, as I have 
said, all art is illustration, only the 
methods and mediums change; only most 
painting is not art to-day and most peo- 
ple who know everything do not know 
this elementary fact, overlooked in their 
rush and hustle to do good to art—and 
advertise themselves. 

HERE were only twoillustrated month- 
is in those days, ScripNER’s and 
Harper's, and two weeklies, Lestiz’s and 
Harper’s. The one daily was Tue Dairy 
Grapuic, the first illustrated daily, illus- 
trated with large photo-engravings and 
lithographs, that ran for any time, in 
this or any other country. But there is 
not one illustrated monthly, weekly or 
daily to compare with them to-day. The 


wecklies and the daily I bombarded with 
sketches of all sorts, from catastrophes 
to comics, and the curious will find the 
results in the numbers of Harprr’s 
WEEKLY, sometimes on the funny page. 
I was even asked to join Lire by its 
founder, J. A. Mitchell. Had I done so, 
where would Gibson have come in? But 
at that time Americans looked for art in 
ScriBNER’s and Harper’s as they think 
they have found it to-day in the movies 
and the comics. Literature and music 
they imbibe from the radio. 
S o far as I remember, it was in April, 
1881, that I received my first commis- 
sion from Harper's to attend the Annual 
Meet of the League of American Wheel- 
men in Boston, and sketch it. [had helped 
to found the League at Newport the year 
before and I sent in some drawings of 
that. The year after I went to Boston for 
Harper's, and I took a header off my tall 
bicycle painted white, and called “The 
Baby Hearse,’’ the pedal broke, before the 
Governor of Massachusetts and the May- 
or of Boston reviewing the parade, and 
I cannot forget the withering scorn of 
Kirk Monroe, the magnificent Marshal, 
editor of Harper’s YouNG Propie and 
President of the League, and his cut- 
ting comment, “I thought you could 
ride!’’ I could and I did, for I rode round 
the rest of the route with one foot, 
arrayed in a polo cap and skin-tight 
knee breeches and a jacket much too 
short, as Captain at the head of the 
Germantown Bicycle Club. I must have 
been amazing. But what sketches I made 
I have forgotten, though I remember I 
missed the official dinner because I was 
at work on the drawings. I seem dimly 
to recall that something went wrong 
and the drawings were never printed. 
If they were, they can be found in Har- 
pER’s WEEKLY, April or May, 1881. I also 


{188x | 





— 


THE ACADEMY SCHOOL : FIRST PUBLISHED WRITINGS 59 


rode to Dedham and made a drawing of 
a colonial house for ScripnER’s that was 
printed in the magazine. 

HIs was at the beginning of bicycling, 
fl. and in it I was a much greater person 
than in art. It was to cycling too, about 
this year or earlier, that I owe my first 
appearance as an author. Three of us Ger- 
mantowners made a trip on tall wheels 
from Philadelphia to Albany; none of us 
got back on them; and we were met and 
interviewed and paragraphed as cranks, 
and I described the first two days’ ride 
in a tourists’ paper printed at the Dela- 
ware Water Gap, where we arrived after 
struggles. But I received neither my 
promised honorarium from the editor 
nor even a copy of the paper. The article 


may have been rejected. On this trip I 
also met the Bentleys on high wheels— 
the backers of the Bell telephone—and 
had I invested in their shares, I should, 
like them, never have been heard of, even 
as a millionaire, as I have been told they 
became soon after. 
9 Dp was also printed in Tue Bicy- 
CLING WorLD an account of a ride I 
took at Atlantic City in winter, on the 
hard beach, which contains as many lies 
to the line—I remember some of them— 
as I could work in. But when one cycles, 
or motors or fishes, or flies, one always 
lies; otherwise, one would not be watched 
and judged and checked before being be- 
lieved even by a gullible world. In those 
days the world that I lived in was gay. 





JOSEPH PENNELL CAPTAIN OF THE GERMANTOWN 
BICYCLE CLUB AT THE MEET OF THE LEAGUE OF 
AMERICAN WHEELMEN HELD AT BOSTON IN 1881 
FROM A SKETCH IN A LETTER WRITTEN MY FATHER 


{188 | 


CHAPTER VI: THE FIRST COMMISSION FOR THE 
CENTURY : A DAY IN THE MASH - STUDIO TAKEN - STUDIO 


BIZ 









































































































































AN OIL REFINERY FROM ‘‘A DAY IN THE MASH’’ 


N the summer of 1880 I went to Rich- 
field Springs to stay with T.R. Manly, 
a student with me at the Academy, 
whose drawings and etchings ought 
to be much better known than they are. 
On the way I stopped at Cooperstown, 


for I had a scheme to illustrate the scenes ' 


of Cooper’s novels with etchings; but it 
never came off. Nor did another, for an 
edition of Poe that Major Putnam was 
to ‘‘bring into print.’’ I did one plate 
and that was enough for him. But this 


EXPERIENCES: NIGHTS AT THE PHILADELPHIA SKETCH CLUB 































































































» MY FIRST ARTICLE IN SCRIBNER’S - 1881 
WASH DRAWING ENGRAVED ON WOOD BY J. F. JUNGLING A GREAT AMERICAN ENGRAVER 


summer was of immense importance to 
me. An article had appeared in ScriB- 
NER’s on Shanty Town in New York, 
illustrated by Blum, Muhrman and the 
rest of the group, and it was this article 
that set me to work for myself. 
AGUELY I had heard of a place near 
Vga Island, Philadelphia, where 
people shot reed birds and the natives 
raised truck. So I went down there and I 
found, hidden away, a mass of old canal 
boats, huts, causeways, barns and oil 


{ 1880 | 





THE FIRST COMMISSION GIVEN ME -: I MEET A. W. DRAKE 61 


works that made me mad to draw them— 
a better subject than the men of New 
York had found, and my own. There was 
system in the way I set about things. I 
made two or three drawings. I looked 
up my cousin, George B. Wood, the 
painter, for I knew he could give me a 
letter to A.W. Drake, the Art Editor of 
ScrIBNER’s, and he did. I already had 
the intelligence of the illustrator in me. 
I did not take over to New York the 
hodge-podge of sketches with which the 
would-be illustrator usually bores the 
att editor without proving to him that 
he has any ability to illustrate anything. 
I took only the drawings I had made for 
“A Day inthe Mash.”’ But these were the 
drawings I wanted Drake to see, and that 
was the title I wanted for the article to 
go with them. I had chosen an author. 
Everything was all arranged beforehand. 
The trip to New York was an adventure. 
I always went over on the Reading, get- 
ting on at Wayne Junction. How fast the 
train was forty years ago — how we 
dreaded the curve at Bound Brook; as a 
matter of fact, it is no faster to-day. This 
shows our progress. I always take the 
best and the fastest, even though it costs 
a little more, though I did not know the 
Florentine merchant’s advice to his son, 
“Never stint thyself in thy work.”’ 
From the front of the ferry boat from 
Jersey City to New York there is the 
most wonderful view in the world. No 
one now scarcely looks at it—or they 
come under the river by the Pennsyl- 
vania and dont see it, we hate beauty 
and loathe grandeur, unless some for- 
eigner tells us to admire it—then we call 
it cute. In those days the highest build- 
ing in lower New York was Babbitt’s 
Soap Works. I made a drawing of that. 
It is gone. Now you look down to find 
it, or did till it was pulled down. But 


New York to me then was, and still is, 
the Unbelievable City, as I wrote of it. 
“The City that has been built since I grew 
up; the City Beautiful, built by men I 
know, for people I know; the City that 
inspires me, that I love.’’ Once over in 
New York, I went to Scribner’s store, 743 
Broadway. I was told, when I asked for 
the office of the magazine, that it was up- 
stairs. There was noelevator,andIclimbed 
first to the Editorial Rooms, and then was 
directed up another flight and through a 
swinging door. Why do I remember that? 
In a room beyond, I saw the back of a 
domed bald head bent over a drawing. I 
think I was shown in right away, and the 
man with the bald head had a pleasant 
smile and he was so interested in my work 
that I forgot entirely to give him the let- 
ter of introduction in my pocket. He was 
A.W.Drake, the Art Editor of ScrisNER’s, 
later of THe Century, which ScriBNER’s 
soon became, a man who invented more 
illustrators and engravers than any one 
in the world. Not only did Drake en- 
thuse over the sketches, but he took me 
downstairs with him and introduced me 
to Mr.R.U. Johnson, then the Associate 
Editor, and in five minutes it was ar- 
ranged that I should complete the set 
of drawings in the Mash, that I should 
get an author—I had done so—and 
that if everything went all right, the 
article would appear. It is extraordinary 
how much sense I had; but then I was 
born an illustrator. And I think R. U. 
Johnson might, in his REMEMBERED 
YesTERDAYS, have said as much of me. 
Upstairs Drake took me again and to 
prove his belief in me, gave me a com- 
mission to draw Henry Calhoun’s office, 
from. some one else's sketch, for the 
magazine. It was my first drawing, re- 
produced by process, page 893, April 1, 
1881. Then he carried me off to lunch. 


{1880 | 


62 CHAPTER VI - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


It was always lunch time, or some sort 
of time, with Drake in those days. We 
went to Dorlan’s on Broadway and had 
fried scallops, the first I ever tasted— 
you never got them in Philadelphia. Nor 
could you get Finelli’s fried oysters in 
New York; or scarcely anything decent 
to eat in America to-day, save in a few 
real homes of real Americans. Then the 
wildly elated boy started back to Ger- 
mantown. All these trips and my work 
at the Academy, and my bicycles came 
out of the year and a half on seven dol- 
lars, rising to ten, a week at the coal 
office and the chickens, and the commis- 
sions I received later. I never spent any- 
thing save on work, books, bicycles, and 
clothes. And my father always looked 
after my money, and invested it, and the 
few hundred dollars were not used up, 
but increased and multiplied. 
lee next day I went to work on the 
sketch Drake gave me and finished it, 
and the day after I got my author and 
we went down to the Mash. I do not 
remember much about my work there, 
only talks with fishermen in the boats 
where they lived, misty mornings, and 
an oil refinery that I drew. My first sub- 
jects are still my subjects—the Wonder 
of Work. I did them all from nature. 
Really, in a way, the drawings were 
‘good, I think, now that I have looked 
them up again, or the engravings from 
them. I took my time, and the author 
took his, so much so that a letter came 
from the Art Department of THE Crn- 
TuRY, asking what had become of the 
article and of me. But at last it was 


ready, and one morning, with the draw-_ 


ings under my arm and the article in my 
pocket, I went again to New York, and 
this time there was a little round man 
in the outer office, and he scared the life 
out of me, by patronizing my work, and 


I learned that he was W. Lewis Fraser, 
the Assistant Art Editor, whom I got to 
know before long, without being afraid 
of him; and I quickly made friends too 
with Miss Gleason, the Secretary. When 
Drake came in that morning, he praised 
the drawings, and they were submitted 
to the Editors downstairs and accepted, 
and the end of it was that I was pre- 
sented with a voucher and received a 
fabulous sum of money which made a 
tight wad in my pocket. The lunch on 
this occasion was in the Vienna Café or 
at the Hotel St. Denis by Grace Church, 
and afterwards we went across the street 
and Drake introduced me to J. F. Murphy 
in his studio, and I showed him the draw- 
ings which had not been taken—of 
course among the best—and he asked for 
them to exhibit in the Salmagundi Club. 
I never saw Murphy again, nor have I 
exhibited in the Salmagundi since. Broad- 
way could hardly contain me. I got 
home somehow and I shall never forget 
ending my mother’s anxiety by pulling 
out note after note from my pocket and 
throwing it on her bed. I was accepted, 
and my drawings were to be printed, and 
I was paid before publication. The author 
did not fare so well. He was rejected or, 
rather, his article was rewritten by a 
journalist of Philadelphia who became 
an Ambassador, and it was published. 
I am sure that through this chance I 
made him an Ambassador, though he 
thought he made me an illustrator—and 
always told me so. Now we are both 
Academicians and his name was Maurice 
Egan, and he was always very nice to me 
ever after, even saying we—E. and J— 
had invented a new style. I never met 
Egan till he was Ambassador to Denmark 
when he used to come to London and 
Fisher Unwin brought us together. And 
we stayed together till the end of his 


{ 1880 | 








THE EDITORS OF THE CENTURY + FROM THE PAINTING BY ORLANDO ROULAND IN THE 


POSSESSION OF THE ARTIST AT THE RIGHT R. W. GILDER THEN C. C. BUEL: A. W. DRAKE 
R. U. JOHNSON - THEY MADE THE CENTURY OUR BEST ARTISTIC AND LITERARY MAGAZINE 
THE BACKGROUND IN THIS PAINTING SHOWS THE EDITORIAL ROOMS OF THE CENTURY AT 
THIRTY-THREE EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET NEW YORK—THE NORTH SIDE OF UNION SQUARE 
THEY WERE ON THE TOP FLOOR AND THE VIEW FROM THEM WAS AS FINE AS THE INTERIOR 


64 CHAPTER VI - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


life. My authors are nearly all gone now. 

EANWHILE, Calhoun’s Office ap- 
M peared in ScripNEr’s. There the curi- 
ousmay findit,signed with a moon and six 


stars, imitating Brennan. I| signed in this" 


fashion every draw- 
ing Icopied, for some 
reason I have com- 
pletely forgotten. As 
yet, I knew nothing 
about methods of 
drawing for engrav- 
ing and printing. 
But, save Drake and 
Brennan, no one had 
experimented. Soon 
it became an age of 
experiment, and we 
learned as we went 
on. Every one worth 
anything began to 
experiment, not im- 
itate, as they do to- 
day. All this was due 
to Drake. There was 
no standard, no sys- 
tem; the illustrator 
workedashewished, 
the photographer 
copied his drawing 
on the block, and 
the wood - engraver 
reproduced it, and 
the photographic engraver, just begin- 
ning, experimented too. Imade some of the 
first drawings for the Ives Screen process— 
known commercially as the Levy Screen, 
and for Ben Day. Now the artist and the 
engraver join a union and again do not ex- 
periment.The “‘process men”’ strike if you 
want to experiment. The artist does not 
either, but does as little as he cannes 
badly as he can, and gets as much out of 
the Art Editor as he possibly can; and 
the proprietor, company or publisher does 





R. W. GILDER - EDITOR OF THE CENTURY 
FROM THE BUST BY THE COMTE DE ROSALES 
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS 


not know enough to stop him—or dare 
to. The printer of ScrrBNER’s, De Vinne, 
endeavored to print what the illustrator 
and the engraver gave him. Each tried to 
do his best; often it was bad, but all 
were striving togeth- 
er to do something 
better than had been 
done. William Morris 
and the British, with 
their rattling of dead 
bones, had not been 
heard of in illus- 
tration and print- 
ing. The illustrations 
made all over the 
world between 1860 
and 1890 are living, 
vital works of art. 
Morrisapplied social- 
ism to art and every 
one worked down to 
the printer, and the 
office boy was as good 
as theartist, and one, 
to prove it, married 
Morris’ daughter. 
Here,theprinter tried 
to work with, or up 
to, the engraver, but 
thedraughtsman was 
theinspirationofall. 
As usual, English 
middle-class pretentious cheapness tri- 
umphed and book illustration was 
standardized. But during those years, 
illustration in Europe and here far sur- 
passed anything that has ever been done; 
now, for the moment, it is ignored, for- 
gotten, unknown. Owing to the vile 
paper the books and magazines were 
printed on, much of it has disappeared. 
Drake, before his death, feared all his 
work would be lost—it and he will live. 
Now the illustrations are vile or photo- 


{ 1880 } 





THE FIRST COMMISSION GIVEN ME -: AT EPHRATA as 


graphs, but that is what the people want. 

HEresult of my first article, intowhich 
T Eakins was glad enough to get, with 
some others, was that I rented a studio 
with H.R. Poore, also an Academy stu- 
dent, in the Presby- 
terian Board of Pub- 
lication on Chestnut 
Street, near Broad. 
Poore’s father was 
connected with the 
Publication Society, 
and Poore himself, 
though determined 
to be a painter, had 
a sneaking liking 
for illustration and 
for a University de- 
gree. Curiously, we 
chummed up. Our 
joint studio was any- 
thing but a success 
and ended after two 
years, and long be- 
fore the end one of 
us was sure to stay 
away when he knew 
the other wanted to 
work there. During 
thesetwo yearsmuch 
happened. Hardly 
were we settled in 


the building when 





A.W. DRAKE BY JOHN C. JOHANSON + GREAT- 


I not submitted as I did, it would have 
been better for them and for me, as it 
was for Abbey, who cut loose. But I 
was always to draw buildings. We started 


. off to the place near Reading. I had 


the manuscript. The 
author—no matter 
about hisname—was 
a funny Philadel- 
phia newspaper man 
who got off cheap 
jokes about Dunk- 
ers and Drunkards, 
though better than 
the junk the “‘col- 
umnists’’ grind out 
now. They would not 
have been allowed 
then, the best\ of 
them, to write for 
Tue Dansury News 
or THe Detroit FREE 
Press — the _ birth- 
places of those bores, 
the American funny 
men. With this au- 
thor I began the co- 
lossalblunderswhich 
I have made, more or 
less, all my life. I ex- 
posed him to the edi- 
tors, but not until 


EST OF ART EDITORS AND A DEAR FRIEND Poore and I had fin- 


Stephen Parrish and PORTRAIT IN THE POSSESSION OF THE ARTIST ished the drawings. 


his son Maxfield, who then was making 
etchings of fish and birds, full of char- 
acter—far better than the work he does 
now—came in. Soon Miss Beaux, back 
from Paris, came too. Then soon a com- 
mission came from THe CrENTuRY to 
illustrate an article on the Dunker settle- 
ment at Ephrata. I lugged Poore in to 
do the figures. He did some things in 
the Mash article also. Even then Drake 
standardized us to certain subjects. Had 


The manuscript was rejected and of course 
the author never forgave me. I suppose it 
was none of my business, but I then took, 
asIcontinuetotake, illustrationseriously, 
and even authors seriously, and I hated to 
see not only the subject, but the editors 
made ridiculous. But the whole country is 
run bysuch funny men nowadays, which is 
one of the reasons why we are the joke 
of theworld.On the hill at Ephrata stood, 
and still stand—though one is gone, fall- 


{ 188x } 


66 CHAPTER VI - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


en down through neglect and decay—the 
monastic houses, copies of South German 
buildings with huge high roofs; and 
within are the cells of the brothers and 
sisters, the Meeting House and the work- 
rooms. We went at 
the drawings with 
fury, but, to our hor- 
ror, we found that 
Howard Pyle had 
been there, for he 
had left behind an 
unfinished drawing 
which was preserved 
inthe hotel. We said 
nothing, but worked 
harder and faster, 
fearing that any 
month Pyle’s article 
mightappearinHar- 
PER’s and ours never 
be printed. I am not 
sure how long we 
stayed, and my only 
memories are of the 
hotel full of drum- 
mers, andthe garrets R. U. JOHNSON 





thanks for it from the Directors of the 
same Institution. There are times when 
stealing is the greatest virtue, the best 
policy. We bought a number of spinning 
wheels and other things of the kind, and 
I tried ever after to 
get rid of them, for 
a consideration, but 
they went in the 
War. My work was 
finished on the spot, 
all done from nature. 
This is the righ 
way to illustrate. I 
have always worked 
this way when pos- 
sible and not copied 
sketches. To copy 
photographsisdeath 
to an artist, though 
the chain anchor of 
incompetents and 
commercials. Myim- 
pressions were put 
down as they struck 
me, and it is the per- 


BY WILLIAM M. CHASE sonal note in illus- 


of the monasteries THE PAINTING IS OWNED BY DR. JOHNSON tration which tells. 


full of noise, the noise of children play- 
ing. One day we went upstairs and broke 
into a pitched battle, and the battle was 
being fought with books. I looked at them 
and had enough sense, after my work for 
the Historical Society, to see that they 
were early American publications. Some- 
how, we got the children out of the room, 
and, thinking that we could make better 
use of the books, filled our pockets and 
shirt fronts with as many as had not been 
torn up in the skirmish, and this is whya 
certain collection in Philadelphia is so 
rich in Sauer’s imprints. Only the other 
day I chanced upon one,among someother 
things, and wisely deciding to add it to 
the others, I got a gorgeous note of 


On the other hand, Poore, save for some 
very good studies of details, manufactured 
his drawings, his compositions ; and to 
my disgust the studio was littered for 
weeks with costumes, models and agricul- 
tural implements. Pyle’s drawings only 
appeared years after, and, though we 
trembled every month when Harpsr’s 
was announced, we came out in THE CEN- 
TurRyY years before he did in Harper's. 
ow we were launched, for if there 
N were only two illustrated magazines, 
there were not enough illustrators to 
work for them, so commissions came 
fast. I was sent to Bethlehem, Pennsyl- 
vania, to do the Moravians with R. B. 
Birch, long before he made his reputa- 


{ 1880 | 








HIS EXCELLENCY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN +: BY ERNEST L. IPSEN + IN THE 
POSSESSION OF THEIR MAJESTIES THE KING AND QUEEN OF DENMARK AND RE- 
PRODUCED BY THEIR PERMISSION : MR. EGAN WROTE THE FIRST ARTICLE IN 
SCRIBNER’S ‘‘A DAY IN THE MASH’’ WHICH WAS ILLUSTRATED BY ME IN 1880 


68 CHAPTER VI - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


tion with Lrrrte Lorp Fauntieroy, and 
Poore was asked to illustrate an article 
on some western subject—he had been 
out west—by Thomas A. Janvier. Janvier 
was not my author, but, save for the his- 
torical Townsend, he was the first live 
writer I had met, and both Poore and I 
were fearfully impressed when he climbed 
to the top of the building and appeared 
in the studio. He told Poore, who never 
asked me to do a thing, just what he 
wanted illustrated, and just how it was 
to be done. Now, sometimes this is de- 
lightful, and sometimes—usually always 
—it is the reverse, for the author in his 
own estimation is the artist, especially 
if he decorates the illustrator’s art with 
a few lines of text written to order to 
fill up space. But Janvier had an “‘artist’s 
wife’’,and he knew, and though—or per- 
haps because—I only did one article with 
him, we were good friends till the end. 
How delightful and picturesque he was 
making a salad—or running things at the 
Century Club, and when I did, years after, 
the article with him on Eleanor’s Cross- 
es, he never bothered me at all. It was 
printed in Harper’s. As I was not asked 
by Poore or by the Editors to work on 
Janvier’s article, I made a drawing of 
Decoration Day and carried it to Charles 
Parsons at Harper's office for the Weekly, 
not for the Magazine. I felt myself a most 
important factor in the success of THE 
Century, which Scrisner’s had now be- 
come, and under no circumstances would 
I have worked for the rival, nor would 
any other of Tue Century artists. But 
Harper’s WEEKLY was not a rival, and I 
took my drawing to New York and at 
Franklin Square climbed the winding iron 
stairway to the little dens and pens of 
the editors and artists right against the 
elevated, with only the window glass 
between, a contrast to the luxury of THe 


Century, which had moved to Union 
Square. I found Mr. Parsons, the Art 
Editor, in his particular cell. He looked 
at my drawing and at me, and his words 
were, ‘Well, have you got anything else 
to live on? If you havent, you'd better 
saw wood.”’ I never hit, at the moment, 
upon the proper answer to such people, 
and, perhaps luckily, I forget what the 
answer was to have been to Parsons when 
I found it. I was mad and would have 
finished him, if I had not been a Friend. 
Providence sometimes is very good to 
fool editors, and they escape because I 
cannot get off the proper thing at the 
right moment. Only many years later 
did I hear from Abbey in London that 
this was Parsons’ stereotyped way of 
greeting the young artist. He could not 
have discouraged me, nor did I discour- 
age him altogether, for soon after I went 
to another Bicycle Meet somewhere down 
East, by the Fall River Line, which 
charged but one dollar. The boat was 
jammed and I made a drawing of the 
people sleeping all over the place while 
I sat up, and sent it to HARPER’s WEEKLY. 
I had to wait some time before it 
was returned with the printed notice I 
was beginning to know that expressed 
‘‘Messrs. Harpers’ regret that they were 
unable to use the offered contribution.’ 
But I have never been able to understand 
how a drawing containing some of the 
figures in my sketch appeared almost sim- 
ultaneously in the Weekly! No doubt it 
was the beginning of that “‘transference’’ 
which is the sincerest form of flattery and 
in my case continues to this day. I think 
the bicycle drawing came out in Har- 
PER’s YOUNG Prope. Anyway, this was 
my first personal encounter with Parsons. 
ie was not all work in the studio by 

any means. It was fun too. There were 
real artists—oil painters—in the build- 


{ 1881 } 





THE FIRST COMMISSION GIVEN ME :- 


ing: ‘Old Williams’’, with whom Abbey 
had studied, and Herbert Welsh, and 
Liberty Tadd, in addition to the Par- 
fishes and Cecilia Beaux, and a lot of 
Germans. Poore and I were only illus- 
trators, though Poore soon was paint- 
ing in oil and was elected an Associate 
of the National Academy for one of his 
dog pictures. There was wild excitement 
over that. We hated all the rest, that is, 
before we ceased to be on terms with 
each other, but we hated more Cecilia 
Beaux, and most some arty females who 
had come in, following her. She was 
soon to do her most interesting work. 
We thought women had no _ business 
there, so we went in for revenge. One 
night, when we had swept up the studio 
and put in order the chairs with no cane 
seats in them, through which not-think- 
ing people used to sit, if there wasn’t a 
fresh palette or anacid bath on them—and 
sometimes they sat there anyway, till they 
were pulled off, we took a tramp model’s 
property pants and a coat, and stuffed 
them with papers, and a mask from some- 
where, and a hat, and gum shoes, and tied 
them all together; and as it grew dark, 
there were no lights on the upper flights 
of stairs, we carried out the gent and laid 
him, spread abroad, head down, at the 
bottom, and then we went home. And no 
one ever did find out, whether the man 
was murdered, or why Cecilia Beaux had 
a faint, or Maxfield Parrish took to mak- 
ing billboards, or who committed the 
(time. because, as 1 have said, Poore’s 
father had something to do with the 
Association which owned the building, 
and it would not do for his son to be 
mixed up in such affairs. Frost was next 
door to us, and the Sketch Club near by, 
and it used to give functions every Thurs- 
day night. I was, as a coming man and 
Academy Student, made a member. One 


PEAY INS IHE STUDIO 69 


day the British Fleet sailed up the Dela- 
wate for the second time and some of the 
officers were asked to the Club, and the 
Fish House Punch was on the fire, and a 
giddy young lieutenant saw the innocent 
apples bobbing about in the boiling ket- 
tle and asked for one, and they gave it to 
him, and he ate it all, and then they 
took him and tied him in an armchair 
and lifted him in it, on the big table and 
gave him a churchwarden and told him 
he might have another apple if he could 
put the pipe in his mouth; and Arthur 
Frost, who waited by him till morning, 
vowed he never did. But Frost always 
was good and kind beside adding gaiety 
to what was a gay age. An uplifter came 
one night to the Club with a scheme for 
deserving somebodies. And he was offered 
at once a hundred dollars— we had mil- 
lionaire members then—the punch was 
made and was sold for the unfortunates, 
and one artist member presented ten dol- 
lars, and another gave five, and still 
another one dollar. And finally Frost 
arose and towered, and his red head shone 
amid the smoke of peace. And he felt 
in one pocket, and then another, and 
then in all his pockets, and at last he said, 
“T was only looking for my latchkey’’, 
and he sat down, and ‘‘the meeting then 
adjourned to sketching’’, as the Secretary’s 
report used to read, and the deserving 
were forgotten. It was like that in the 
dear dead days before there were arty 
women, and she-men. But almost all the 
distinguished American artists came from 
or through Philadelphia in those days, 
and were made members of the Club. 
And I have been chosen President of the 
Philadelphia Sketch Club since. 

HE Sketch Club, which has been in 

existence for half a century, is now 
one of the sights of Philadelphia. It stands 
in the Little Street of Clubs,’ Camac 


{ 1881 } 


TO CHAPIER VI» THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Street, which also holds the Franklin Inn, 
a literary club where the Philobiblon too 
has its meetings, the Plastic and the Coin 
D'Or, to mention a few. It is a street mainly 
of little two-story houses, real red-brick, 
white-shuttered Philadelphia houses, on 
one side almost perfect, the other ruined, 
a big tree at one end, a skyscraper at the 
other, but the Sketch Club untouched, un- 
spoiled. Once you have passed the easily 
opened door and crossed the hall, you are 
in the library and few art clubs in the 
country have a better one. The books, and 
many are valuable, were mostly given by 
a pious member. Above the cases 1s a gal- 
lery of portraits of members, the work of 
two others—a historical collection of por- 


traits of Philadelphia artists for the last 
half century. Long windows reach from 
floor to ceiling showing a back yard, the 
old Philadelphia back yard, with flowers 
and trees, brick-paved walk and high brick 
wall, quiet and peaceful still. The base- 
ment is a huge dining room with a great 
fire place, and the, alas, mostly unused 
punch bow], or when used profaned with 
soft drinks but oftener covered with dust 
and tears, ate in it. Here, too, the walls 
are hung with sketches by and of Phila- 
delphia artists. There are other rooms, 
other pictures, other properties, and up- 
stairs a picture gallery over all. The Club, 
like many other institutions in Philadel- 
phia, is different from any in the country. 








































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































= 























THE BROTHERS’ AND SISTERS’ HOUSES + FROM ‘‘A COLONIAL MONASTERY’’ + SCRIBNER’S 1881 


WOOD ENGRAVING UNSIGNED - 


FROM A PENCIL AND WASH DRAWING ON TINTED PAPER 


{188x | 





CHAPTER VII: IN AND OUT OF THE PHILADELPHIA 


STUDIO - MEETING LELAND - 


SEEING WHITMAN - HADEN 


LECTURES ‘THE ETCHING CLUB: THE GREAT PICTURE BOOK 
MURALS AT HARRISBURG - REUNION AT LURAY OF NORTH 


= 





5 sy LENG. 


A SPRING DAY FROM ‘‘VISITING THE GYPSIES” 


ND then there came a commis- 

sion to illustrate for THE CENn- 

TuRY an article by Charles G. 

Leland on the Art School and 
Art Club he had started in Philadelphia to 
develop the Manual Arts, at which all the 
young lady amateurs, school teachers and 
infant prodigies were proving how impos- 
sible were his practices, though his prin- 
ciples were right: that every one can learn 
to draw, but when they have—and they 
can just as they can learn to write—what 
good is it unless they have something to 
say by drawing ? But these principles have 
never yet been carried out or even under- 
stood in America, where the arts and crafts 
are all in the hands of amateurs and up- 
lifters, millionaires and pifflers. I used often 
to see Leland with George Boker and Walt 
Whitman walking down Chestnut or up 


AND SOUTH : DEATH OF GARFIELD: WORK IN WASHINGTON 


* PEN DRAWING PUBLISHED IN THE CENTURY 


Walnut Street, clearing the pavement as 
they advanced, side by side, the only things 
that could interfere with their triumphal 
progress being ailanthus trees, measuring 
worms and squirting bricks, Philadelphia 
products now gone with other good and 
bad Philadelphia character. And I used, 
if I went down Broad Street, where the 
artless Art Club now looms, to see the 
top of Leland’s head at a front window, 
when writing, or his great flowing beard 
if he looked up, for he wrote at a first- 
floor window of the house on the street 
where he lived, and he did this wherever 
he was, up to the last in Florence. The 
article was printed, but I made no draw- 
ings for it; maybe the pupils did. And 
one of them, or rather one of the man- 
agers, was Elizabeth Robins, and I was 
introduced to her; Leland brought her 


{ 1881 | 


fae CHAPTER VIL THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILEUS tRAtoR 


up to the studio to see me. But that 
is another story, or rather the beginning 
of many other stories, some of which she 
has told. And then he began to notice 
me, and I, having in Philadelphia been 
recognized as the coming genius—a 
young “‘prince among illustrators’ was 
a mild term—was taken by him, or was 
it by Kirk, the editor of Lippincort’s 
Macazing, to the Triplets, and we drew 
lots for seats, as was the custom, and I 
found myself, at my first dinner, between 
Whitman and Furness. And how dis- 
gusted they were; and if it had not been 
that Doctor Brinton, or Max Adeler’s 
brother, was nice to me, or, more impor- 
tant, that my father was suddenly taken 
ill, and I had to leave, I would not still, 
I am sure, be a member, though I am, I 
think, the only member of that epoch 
left, and about the only one who would 
have been allowed to be a member among 
all the members to-day, though I think 
I have been dropped, or the Club is dead. 
It still, I find, goes on—but I have left 
Philadelphia. Then Leland put me into the 
Penn Club—the Triplets were the inner 
circle of the Club—and I remember that 
Furness hated me, for the Lippincotts 
had asked me to illuminate Tur Szven 
Acrs oF Man, to be made into a gift 
book; and I did this, in my way, from 
a copy of the First Folio, and Furness’ 
comments on my illuminations were ex- 
cruciating. Only, luckily for me, Lippin- 
cotts had paid for my decorations and 
illuminations in advance—a hundred 
dollars or so—and they every once in a 
while remind me I owe them that sum 
in work, and also for a drawing of a pig 
to go in a school-book, which the editor 
spurned, though they paid for it, too. 
NpD then somehow—probably I sug- 
A gested it—I got Leland to do an arti- 
cle—"‘ Visiting the Gypsies’’—for THz 


Century, and everything changed. In- 
stead of going to Meeting with my father 
on First Day mornings—we were living 
all this while in a boarding house in Ger- 
mantown, the Coulter House—I would go 
down to South Broad Street, and there 
would be Miss Robins and Leland, and 
then we would go sometimes to Camden 
and maybe call on Whitman, and go on 
to see Romanies, but most often it was up 
Broad Street, usually taking the horse cars 
to Oakdale Park, and there they would 
be. And we would have beer the Rye, 
for all Gypsies all over the world knew 
him by that name, would pay for, out 
of silver mugs, and each would have a 
different crest or initial on it. But all 
this is written. Or to West Philadelphia 
where, in a wood, there were Lovells, 
and with them too—or the Rye did— 
we chummed up. But that is all written 
in E.’s To GypsyLanp, though no one 
scarce knows the book. Leland’s article 
came out, and then he suggested others 
for Our ContINENT which E. wrote and 
I illustrated, and they used to come to 
the studio where I was working on my 
first series of Philadelphia etchings—and 
one day I spilled a whole mess of nitric 
acid on the pants of my blue suit and they 
turned to gold in spots; and I painted the 
spots with Prussian blue and started for 
Atlantic City; but the dust and sand set- 
tled on the result, and I had to go to bed 
while a kind friend carried the pants about 
till he found some of near the same size. 
Till his death, Leland was mixed up in 
many ways and places with my life or 
with E.'s life or ours. The other day the 
centenary of his birth occurred and the 
only attention that was paid to it in Phila- 
delphia was a paper read at the Philobib- 
lon Club by his nephew, Edward Robins, 
yet Leland was the greatest Philadelphian 
of his time. But no Philadelphian knows 


{ 1881 | 








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CHARLES GODFREY LELAND 
FOUNDER OF THE MANUAL ARTS MOVEMENT -; 
FROM AN ETCHING MADE IN LONDON :- 
BUT THE ONLY ONE IN EXISTENCE - 








‘““HANS BREITMANN’’ 
UNCLE OF MRS. PENNELL 
BY NO MEANS A GOOD PORTRAIT 
BY MONSIEUR FELIX BRACQUEMOND 


et eee eee 


eR ES SATE ea sieicntone 


SCHOLAR AND 


TA CHAPTER VII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


this—or anything else. Whitman, though 
I often saw him sitting on the fruitman’s 
high chair at MarketStreet Wharf or riding 
on the front platform of the horse cars, I 
had little to do with, though, as I say, I used 
to meet him; and though I remember him 
perfectly, I have no recollection of any- 
thing he ever said. He even used to come 
to Germantown, all the way out in the 
horse cats, and stay with Francis Howard 
Williams, a collector of celebrities, and 
there I remember once meeting him with 
Cable—this was between 1882 and 1883 
when Cable was lecturing—whom Wil- 
liams had also gathered in for an evening. 
Somewhere about this time I did a book 
with a Dr.Buck about Whitman and went 
to his Long Island birthplace and drew 
that, and I think other subjects, but all 
are gone, I dont think thatI ever saw the 
volume and I forget the title. 
ap HE year 1881 was full of work. Early 
in the spring I, as I have said, com- 
menced my etchings of Philadelphia, for 
from the beginning it was my aim to show 
that that is best which nearest lieth, soaked 
as I was—though I could scarcely draw— 
with English tradition, which I had ab- 
sorbed not only at the Historical Society, 
but by looking round me and going over 
the prints at Claghorn’s (James L. Clag- 
horn, President of the Pennsylvania Acad- 
emy), where, in the corner of his upstairs 
print room, Sunday after Sunday afternoon 
was spent studying Whistler and Haden, 
while evenings were put in reading Ham- 
erton and Ruskin. I liked Hamerton’s 
A Patnter’s Camp IN THE H1GHLANDs and 
Tue UNKNown River. Ruskin’s descrip- 
tions woke me up and made me see things, 
but I never got completely through any- 
thing but the ELements or Drawina. The 
third great man whom I got hold of— 
Shakespeare—bored me to death. There is 
more for me in one line of Virgil, as 1t was 


hammered into me at school—'’So long 
as the cloud shadows chase each other 
over the sides of the mountains’’—more 
pleasure than I have ever found in all the 
Shakespeare I have ever attempted; and 
what little of Shakespeare on the stage I 
have seen I failed to appreciate, as most 
people fail, but do not dare to say so. But 
it was from Horace, I fancy, and in Friends’ 
School, I got my love of wine and of Italy. 

Np then Seymour Haden came to the 
Avnited States in charge of Frederick 
Keppel, at the time of the Philadelphia 
Etching Club International Exhibition. We 
had started an Etching Club and I was made 
Secretary, and made friends and enemies 
who exist to this day. I heard Haden talk 
at the Academy of the Fine Arts where 
the show was held, and afterwards I 
think Parrish, Peter Moran, Ferris and 
I were invited by Claghorn to the Union 
League and had a real Philadelphia sup- 
per of snapper, reed birds and champagne, 
the first I ever drank; but I did not like 
it and do not like it yet. But there are 
things I do like, and if the cranks who 
have overrun and ruined this land had 
only had one good dinner and one good 
drink in their lives, they would lynch 
any one who would try to prevent their 
having more. Every town then, as now, 
had an Etching Club, but ours and the 
New York one were real clubs. We met 
once a month at some one’s studio, but in 
the meantime we each etched a plate and 
pulled enough proofs to exchange with 
the other members over beer and pretzels, 
or champagne and chicken salad, at the 
members’ houses. We exchanged views and 
prints, and then, with the help of the Acad- 
emy, we got up an International Exhibi- 
tion, and somehow I was made Secretary 
of that. Now the parent clubs are dead, 
but each Main Street, Middle-West town 
has one, with one object—to do good to 


{188x } 





end 














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THE LAST OF THE SCAFFOLDING : ERECTION OF THE CITY HALL PHILADELPHIA - ETCHING MADE 
1881 - THE PLATE WON ME ELECTION TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF PAINTER ETCHERS LONDON 





THE PHILADELPHIA STUDIO - THE GREAT BOOK rie 


etching by making money for its members, 
especially if very young and very incom- 
petent. There are more etching clubs than 
etchers in the land to-day; and more teach- 
ers than etchers—I even am one, but I do 
try to teach the craft practically. That I 
know is the way to teach. 
ee were English houses and Eng- 
lish streets in Philadelphia, with Eng- 
lish names—Chancery Lane and Water 
Street Stairs, and Plow Inn Yard and 
Christ Church—and I know now, as I 
believed then, that these houses and 
streets and churches were more English 
and more beautiful and had more char- 
acter than anything in any one town in 
England; and one reason why England 
interests me is that it is so like Phila- 
delphia as it then was. All my etchings 
of these subjects were attempted under 
the influence of Whistler and Haden. I 
even copied the wall in Haden’s ‘‘Whis- 
tler’s House,’ which shows how ignorant I 
was, for it is one of his cheapest hack ma- 
chines. Then, too, Abbey had done his 
Herrick, and soon was to bring out his 
Oxp Sones, and every one waited every 
month for his English drawings in Har- 
pER’s, as they look for fashions and photo- 
graphs now. I tried to learn my trade in 
every way. Once Thomas Nast lectured at 
the Academy of Music; he was the best 
cartoonist we ever had, but not the only 
artist. He set upa big sketch block on the 
stage on an easel and he asked the audi- 
ence what they would like him to draw. 
After they had stopped demanding local 
celebrities of whom he had never heard, 
there came requests for the usual lot— 
Washington, Tweed, Lincolna—and he 
tried various sheets of paper and then 
dashed off Tweed’s portrait, pulled it 
from the easel, and it flew out of his 
hands and sailed across the floor right 
to my feet at the edge of the stage. I was 


there to learn how to do it. I picked 
the drawing up to hand it back to him, 
and saw, as I held it up, the whole por- 
trait carefully pricked out with pin-holes. 
He only had to draw over them as fast 
as he could to get a perfect Nast. But as 
Phil May used to say, when he did simi- 
lar stunts, though without pin-holes, 
“Far be it from me”’ to rival this great 
man. But I did learn a lot that night, 
and its a pity some of Nast’s successors 
havent learned his tricks; they could 
never learn his mastery of his art. 
ap HE great event of this spring was the 
publication of Blank & Blank’s great 
work, written by Blank on, I have to this 
day no idea what, or rather what the title 
was. But I do know that one day we— 
Poore and I—heard that Peter Moran and 
Stephen Ferris and the Smillies were mak- 
ing etchings and drawings of pictures and 
getting paid a dollar an hour for it too. 
We had no respect for tradition, or profes- 
sional etiquette, but a wild desire to get 
some of the dollars, as we heard there were 
endless drawings to be made; and we did 
get some of the work to do and some of 
the dollars for doing it. I think the ever 


~ thoughtful and overworked Ferris got both 


for us. What we were asked to do was to 
make pen-and-ink sketches from photo- 
graphs of well-known pictures by European 
artists. This we did, and so well that we 
were given lots more—or I was—and as 
we virtually could select our own artists, 
we tried to do our best. I remember I 
was given two Ricos, a Fortuny and a 
Casanova to begin with. We were fur- 
nished with photographs, but how these 
were turned into brilliant pen drawings 
is one of the lost arts of illustration, 
though illustration is a lost art now. 
The success 1n my case was so terrific that 
Tue Century asked me to do an article 
on the pictures in the Corcoran Art Gal- 


{ 1881 | 


78 


lery at Washington. The publisher’s suc- 
cess, we heard, was equally great. The 
drawings were reproduced by line photo- 
engraving which was just coming in, 
though thebest workeverdonewasdonein 





Caner 
aur 


ie 
VENICE FROM THE PUBLIC GARDEN : 


GIBSON COLLECTION BY D. MARTIN RICO - DRAWN IN 1881 - 


“4 


those early years. When the photoengrav- 
ings were made of the pictures to be repro- 
duced, a proof ofeach print was sent toeach 
painter whose pictures we had copied, 
with a request that he would say what he 
thought of the reproduction. In some few 
cases he was flattered; in others he was fu- 
rious,and Iam told—mind, Iwas told this 
story—that in every case when the artist 
answered, praising or blaming the sketch 
made from his painting without his per- 
mission, it was a simple matter—mind, 
I am told this—to cut off the painter’s 
signature from his letter, reproduce that, 
and print it under the reproduction of 
the painting, so that some people might 
imagine that all these illustrations were 
original signed drawings by the greatest 
living European artists. There was not 
even an attempt at international artistic 
copyright in those days. All I do know 
is that Rico, twenty years after, in Venice 
one afternoon, wondered when he had 
made a certain pen drawing of his paint- 
ing from the Public Garden, and signed it, 
not only with his name, but with a moon 


CHAPTER VII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


and six stars too. When he found out [had 
copied it, he admitted it was so good that 
he said it ought to be his own. And on this 
work we prospered. All the while I was 
working at my Philadelphia etchings and 


COPY BY ME IN PEN AND INK OF THE PAINTING IN THE 


PUBLISHED IN THE CENTURY 


they were sent to the Academy and were 
hung; and great was my conceit when a 
few lines about one of them appeared in 
Tue Lepcrr. And I cut the puff out and 
framed it, and that—my first notice—is 
gone too, though I saw it just before the 
War. But I shall never find it again. 
ap HIs year was jammed so full of things 
for me that it is hard to keep count 
of them. Tue Century people asked me 
to go, with Drake, to Luray, to make 
drawings in the newly discovered cavern. 
I journeyed down alone and stopped over 
at Harrisburg; no mural paintings there, 
no new capitol even, but the most won- 
derful old wooden bridge over the beau- 
tiful river, the Susquehanna. This I etched 
ona plate so large that it took two sheets 
of paper to print it on later, in the old 
printing office high up in Jayne’s build- 
ing on Dock Street to which I went to 
print, because it was there Moran and 
Ferris printed their etchings. 
O NE day, years later, I thought it my 
duty to stop at Harrisburg —I was 
coming back from the West—and see the 


{ 188x } 





THE PHILADELPHIA STUDIO - THE HARRISBURG MURALS 709 


new Capitol and the murals. There could 
be no danger—Abbey was dead and the 
architect under a cloud—so I stopped. 
There was one of those dear old American- 
plan hotels on the main street, with a 





THE GREAT OLD WOODEN BRIDGE OVER THE SUSQUEHANNA AT HARRISBURG - 


I was, I could not have told which Capi- 
tol of any one of twenty other States I 
was looking at, save that this one had 
a gtay ice-cream mould of a stalagmite 
melting on each side of the entrance stairs 


acetal ane Semmens 2} 
: 4 





FROM AN 


ETCHING MADE I881I - THE BRIDGE IS NOW DESTROYED AS ALL AMERICA IS BEING DESTROYED 


row of gents sitting on the back legs of 
their chairs downstairs, spitting, and a 
row of colored waiters, drilled better 
than white soldiers, upstairs waiting, and 
after dinner I went to look for the old 
bridge; but that had been the first thing 
to go; it had American character and 
was built by American hands. And the 
proofs of the etching done when I went 
to Luray Cave are gone too. The old Colo- 
nial houses still stood; probably they are 
gone now, I havent been there since, 
and the whole place, I understand, is 
turned over to an up-to-date New York 
architect. It is just as well, possibly, for 
now that Burns is dead there are scarce 
any native architects left in the State. 
Since then, a Governor has told me that 
if I would come up he would show me 
wooden bridges still standing and give 
me good liquor still lying in the cellar 
of the gubernatorial mansion. Needless to 
say his ancestors were Friends. I wonder 
what the present incumbent has done with 
both. Next morning I approached the 
Capitol and if [had not rememberedwhere 


into yawning cracks and crevasses, in the 
pavement, which I had to be careful not 
to tumble into. I approached and entered 
the seat of the lawgivers of my native 
State. As I gazed transfixed, aloft, Inearly 
broke my leg over one of Harry Mercer's 
tiles, about an inch higher than the ad- 
joining one. Knowing Mr. Mercer's taste 
for hanging Conestoga wagons in the air, 
and arranging invisible doors with Rem- 
brandt’s etchings on them, which open 
and hit you in the face while you look, 
and dungeons for dining rooms, and stairs 
that end nowhere, and sofas that turn into 
bathtubs if you sit on them, in his pala- 
tial home, I was not, and am not, sure 
whether this arrangement was a joke or 
art. And minding my steps, I advanced 
and gazed around, and seeing cuspidors 
twenty feet high illuminated with jewels 
and lights, I asked an attendant how they 
were used. ‘““Them aint spittoons, Cap; 
them’s stands for flags uv conker'd en- 
emies!’’ I looked beyond and straight be- 
fore me sprang from the waving floor the 
grand staircase of the Paris Opera House— 


{ 1881 | 


80 CHAPTER VII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


or maybe that is somewhere else, in some 
other Capitol of the same kind, the cre- 
ation of some other original American 
architect from photographs. High above 
were lunettes, and sailing out of one right 
Opposite me were the topmasts of Abbey’s 
decoration—all the rest of the design cut 
off by the moulding below. ‘Religious 
Liberty being brought to America.’ I 
knew this, for I had seen the whole paint- 
ing in London. And under it, in glitter- 
ing letters of solid gold on the surface, 
the legend, “‘My God. What an Example’’ 
—the words of William Penn—the end 
and beginning of two sentences jammed 
together, running completely around the 
dome and joining upright before thedeco- 
ration. I left despite the appeals of the 
spieler that I should accompany him to 
“see the real hand-painted ile paintings 
done bya real young lady of Philadelphia.” 
I have since seen Miss Oakley’s work in 
her charming studio and on the walls of 
her interesting exhibitions. I had seen 
enough. But in about thirty other State 
Capitols and in the interiors at Wash- 
ington, you can see and hear the same 
thing. Go to the nearest and come away 
ashamed and delighted at the absence 
of humor and the absence of art, which 
is typical of most American murals to- 
day. But American art is rather confusing 
to foreigners. [remember the adventures 
of Fritz Thaulow and Sir Alfred East, 
not in Harrisburg, but in Pittsburgh and 
Philadelphia, when, but separately, they 
served on the Carnegie jury. Thaulow 
arrived in the first city and as the train 
stopped and he got out, right in front of 
his car was a brazen band which burst 
into “‘See the Conquering Hero Comes.”’ 
Thaulow was much impressed and took 
off his hat, only to find himself violently 
shoved from behind by the captain of the 
victorious local ball team, with the re- 


mark, “‘Hustle yer big shader!’’ Then he 
began to take notice, and the next morn- 
ing when he came down to breakfast at 
the Shenley, and the waiter said, ‘“Amer- 
ican or European ?”’ he replied, ‘‘None uv 
yer tam pizness!’’ And in Philadelphia 
some one gave East a dinner at the Art 
Club and he was telling how he had just 
been made a Royal Academician, and 
what an event that was in London—how 
city dignitaries were proud to acknow]l- 
edge it. ‘“Ah, it’s different here,’’ said the 
host ; ‘“‘the Mayor never even heard of art, 
to say nothing of the Royal Academy!”’ 
So sad was the scene that two of the guests 
went out on the front gallery of the club 
to console themselves, but ina second they 
rushed in, yelling, ‘‘Boys, the Mayor’s 
done it! Come!’’ And there, on the front 
of the City Hall, traced in letters of fire, 
was the legend “‘Welcome R. A.’’ And it 
was not till East proposed to hire a car- 
riage next morning and go in person to 
thank the Mayor, that they told him the 
Royal Arcanums, or some such things, 
were having a convention in the city and 
that was why the sign was in the sky. 
Poor old East, he was such a delight to 
his enemies and to his friends. 
A tT Luray, found Drake in arealSouth- 
ern hotel; and what care we had to 
take not to tumble through the holes in 
the floor as we went from the porch to 
the dining room, when the gong sounded, 
to get our chicken and pone. Thedrawings 
were done, but I had experiences alone 
in the cave with a candle that sometimes 
went out, when there was a darkness that 
could be felt, and with guides and with 
twoengineers who were fitting up the elec- 
tric light. With these engineers I had lots 
of fun, and fright too. Tied to a rope, we 
would crawl through holes or drop into 
chasms, to see what was on the other side 
or at the bottom. One of the engineers was 


{1 88x} 





THE PHILADELPHIA STUDIO - FIRST WAR ARTICLE SI 


as fat as was thin, and I shall never for- 
get how, after wandering around in a new 
hall we had found by crawling through a 
hole way up at the top, as we started 
back, a stone fell on him and wedged him 
fast ahead of me. I illustrated the article 
with monotypes which, to the disgust 
of the printers, I made in the office, 
squirting ink and paint over everything. 
This must have been in July, 1881, just 
after Garfield was shot. Poore and Par- 
rish and I, working away in the Phila- 
delphia studio on the 2d of July, knew 
somehow that something terrible had 
happened —and it was the same with 
everybody all over the country. The 
country felt the shock and shuddered, 
just as when Lincoln was killed. We have 
changed, or Presidents have, since then. 
Just before I left Luray the first Reunion 
of the men of the North and the men of 
the South was held there, and I heard 
real stories of fighting and how it was 
done and why it was done, by the men 
who did it. We cried and laughed and 
sang, Dont you see de black cloud risin’ 
over yander,’ ‘“The Star Spangled Banner”’ 
and “‘Dixie’’, the whole livelong hot day, 
in the streets of the town and in the 
courthouse. Among the Southern men 
was an old unreconstructed rebel chap- 
lain who got talking to me of slavery. 
“Tf you had a mule worth one hundred 
dollars,”’ 
death? Well, if you wouldnt do that, 
would you lick to death a slave worth 
fifteen hundred?’’ Afterwards, seeing me 
sketching in the street, he came up and 
said,‘ ‘Suh, I have to tell yuh that yuh will 
go far, suh!’’ He was a prophet, in some 
ways. So strongly did the war fever take 
hold of me that on the way back to 
Washington, where Garfield was dying, 
I stopped at Antietam and went over the 
battlefield and near twenty years after 


he said, “‘would you lick it to © 


the fight I dug bullets out of fence rails. 
[had to stay that night, and after supper 
I was told there was a man in the hotel 
I ought to jee and hear, and I was pre- 
sented to’Colonel Alexander Boteler. 
Then and there he told me the story of 
John Brown's Raid, and his part in it 
after the fight as judge, for he tried John 
Brown. I was held by the magnificent old 
man and by one fact in his story: John 
Brown barricading himself in the engine 
house and commencing to fire on the 
crowd outside, when the first person killed 
or wounded was a darky, and at once the 
news went round that the Yankees had 
come down to kill the Niggers; and the 
Colonel said, “‘That ended slavery round 
here, for, suh, every nigger tuck to the 
woods!”’ Part was told and part, later in 
the night, read from his manuscript. 
A ND then my genius as an illustratorre- 
vealed itself, for, after an hour or two 
of talk, I proved to him that, even if THe 
Century had not the courage—it was in 
the era of the bloody shirt—to print his 
manuscript, it was his duty to send the 
Editor this valuable historical document. 
It was sent, and 1t appeared in THE CENn- 
TuRy, and was I believe the first article 
on the war, though not the beginning of 
Tue Century ’sWar Series: the first article 
about the war written by a man who took 
part init. I, adventurous illustrator, was 
responsible, but Mr. R. U. Johnson, in 
REMEMBERED YESTERDAYS, does not men- 
tion the article or even the fact that I got 
it for THe Century; but I did. On my way 
to Washington I also stopped at Harper’s 
Ferry and made a drawing of the engine 
house in which Brown was besieged that I 
think was printed with Colonel Boteler’s 
article. I went also, on my own, to Rich- 
mond and drew Libby Prison, and that 
was published too. I have always done 
the things that should be done, and in- 


{ 188x } 


82 CHAPTER VII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


vented authors, and some day, this will be 
recognized, though I have been forced to 
call the attention of a stupid world to it. 
There were drawings too, made at York- 
town. Drake and I went down to Old 
Point and stayed at the big hotel and 
there were drills and guard mounting, 
and my future sister-in-law, though I 
did not know her, beautiful in an ivory 
gown and a big Gainsborough hat, sur- 
rounded by the most gorgeous officers in 
uniform. After the war one never saw 
officers in uniform, save on duty and at 
hops in the evening. Drake fell ill, and 
I worked up the Luray sketches. I could 
not make drawings in the cave. And one 
day we went up the York River on a 
steamboat and heard the cry of the man, 
“Now, then, all yous what aint got 
tickets jest walk up to the cappen’s office 
and settle.’’ And then we drove to the 
Nelson mansion, which I drew, and the 
family—I think they were all Nelson 
Page's sisters or cousins or aunts—and 
all charming—told us how the place, in 
every war from the time of the settle- 
ment, was always run over by both sides 
in turn, till there was scarce anything left 
in the house or on the land. By the time I 
reached Washington, Garfield had been 
sent North, and I started my drawings of 
the White House, the Capitol and the Cor- 
coran Gallery for THe Century. I also 
made an etching of the Capitol seen over 
a wooden shack, one proof of which, I 
learn, is still in existence. I have no idea 
who were the authors of the articles I 
was illustrating. Merely a list of sub- 
jects, to which I never paid the slightest 
attention, if possible, was given me by 
Drake. The White House was delightful; 
it was before there was any sort of resto- 
ration about it. Owing to the national 
grief for Garfield’s misfortune, there were 
few visitors, though Vice-President Ar- 


thur was in residence. I presented a letter 
to the President's young Secretary. He 
told me he would show me round, if I 
came before seven the next morning. I 
was there. We did the downstairs rooms, 
then we went upstairs, and ““This,’’ said 
he, “‘is the President’s anteroom; this 
the President’s dressing room; this the 
President's bedroom,”’ and throwing open 
the door, a white-gowned figure, with a 
yell, sprang out of the far side of the 
bed. ‘‘And that is the President.’’ After- 
wards I got on more familiar but less 
intimate terms with President Arthur. 
When I come to think of it, this must 
have been later, after Garfield’s death. 
My evenings were spent usually with 
Professor W. H. Holmes and a number 
of other artists, when I was not with 
a crowd of cyclers at the rooms of the 
Capitol Bicycle Club. Professor Holmes 
was then in Major Powell’s department 
of the Ethnological Bureau, and so was 
Thomas Moran, who ought to have been 
a great artist—he is bigger than the 
present-day duffers, anyway—and Holmes 
had assisted at the discovery not only 
of the Yellowstone Geysers but of the 
Grand Canyon of the Colorado. He gave 
wonderful descriptions of the way Pow- 
ell’s party traveled across the desert, 
knowing nothing of the Canyon; and 
how for some days they crossed the level 
plain, at last sighting trees on the far- 
away horizon with nothing but clouds 
beyond, strange in that country, aston- 
ishing these scientists as they slowly 
approached; of their keeping on until 
the mules refused to go further; of their 
own terror as they came to the trees and 
that awful screen of clouds; and how, 
when they did reach the edge, there was 
nothing, and Major Powell, in his 
ghastly fright, whispered, “‘My God, 
boys, its true, weve struck the end of 


{ 188r } 





THE PHILADELPHIA STUDIO - SUMMER IN WASHINGTON 83 


the world!’ In the Yellowstone they 
sat down for supper one evening by a 
quiet boiling spring and put things in it to 
cook, but, suddenly, it went off and spout- 
ed a hundred feet in the air; ‘‘and,’’ said 
Holmes, ‘‘some of 
the crowd didnt stop 
running till they got 
to Washington.” 
ee like these 
and the offer of a 
post if I could make 
satisfactory draw- 
ings — satisfactory, 
thatis, froma govern- 
ment critical stand- 
point—induced me, 
for the first and last 
time, to compete for 
a post. I was given 
a sort of profile map 
which Holmes had 


of drudgery was beyond me mentally as 
well as artistically. There were other 
Washington artists, and the first Ameri- 
can prize student, and Doctor Burnett, 
who was, I believe, the first person in 
Washington to col- 
lect etchings, whom 
I used to go to see. 
Lheymatresallasave 
Professor Holmes, 
rather vague in my 
rather dim memory 
of forty years ago. 

UT vivid is my 

memory of run- 
ning one afternoon, 
on Pennsylvania Ave- 
nue, into Farney, 
Metcalf, Cushing, 
and some Zufi Ind- 
ians, followed by an 
* admiring crowd, and 





made in pencil and 
told to copy it in 
ink. Holmes said he 
had made it with the 
thermometer away 
below zero, thawing 
the lead pencil, or 
himself, over a fire 
between his legs as 
he drew. I felt like telling him, as I used 
to be told,‘ ‘there was no merit in that.’’ 
The only other thing about it I can re- 
member is that there was a Mount Pen- 
nell on the drawing, but where that 
Mount is or was, I do not know or care. 
I believe there is an Elizabeth River dis- 
covered by Landor in South America, 
but then both he and Teddy said the 
other never was there. I took the map 
and improved it, and I did not get on 
the Survey. But how Holmes, who could 
make the most stunning direct water- 
colors, should have preferred this sort 





FROM A LETTER TO A. W. DRAKE I881 


of my joining myself 
to the party. Metcalf 
and Farney had come 
down to illustrate 
articles on the Zufis 
—who had journeyed 
to Washington from 
the West by way 
of Plymouth Rock, 
where they went to get the sacred water 
of the Atlantic, with Cushing, who had 
lived among them and studied them and 
was now writing about them for THE 
Century. As we were all working for 
the magazine, we chummed up. If they had 
been working for Harper’s, we would not 
have spoken. There were happenings that 
day. The Indians passed the afternoon, first 
in the back yard of an oyster saloon, cut- 
ting the pearls out of oyster shells, for 
that was money, though the people of 
Washington did not know it. Then they 
were taken to a music hall and intro- 


{ 1881 } 


84 CHAPTER VII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


duced to the ladies of the company, and 
I understood that some arrangement was 
made for them to appear with it. They 
were to have seen the Great Father, but 
as he was dying when they arrived in 
Washington and the coming Great Father 
was not yet showing himself, they were 
led instead to the East portico of the 
Capitol, where they said their prayers 
and spread their offerings before the 
statue of a sailor holding up a ball in 
his hand, and asking Columbus, umpire 
at the game, the chief figure, how 1s it? 
And they were given Mat Morgan’s cari- 
catures and Barnum’s posters for their 
embroideries and pots. It was pretty 
quaint and I often wondered if a story 
in THe Century called “‘Three That Go 
and Two That Come’’ gave the Indian 
idea of the whole affair. For those sol- 
emn Indians were no fools; it is only we 
thieving Americans who have stolen 
everything from them, who are fools, 
saying the only way to improve an Indian 
is to kill him and steal his home, his land. 
But the Indians, I am told, do strange 
things to the Friends, who feed, clothe 
and educate them at Carlisle, and when 
they go back, they burn their clothes 
and forget their education. I have seen 
one plowing in a top hat and blanket at 
Gallup, and a squaw, who could not talk 
English, speaking over the ’phone. And 
now the uplifters want to stoptheir dances 
and festivals—but adore jazz and the tan- 
go and the League of Nations, and want 
to wipe out our real Americans, as the 
Spaniards wiped out the Aztecs. We are 
only imitators. I had also drawings to 
make in some of the new houses in Wash- 
ington. Here I followed Brennan, who had 
shocked the superior owners, people with 
many “‘things on the mantel shelves that 
gave the whole show away.’’ One newly- 
moved-in and moved-up lady told me 


that Brennan had spattered ink all over 
her rugs, and that when she objected he 
told her it was all they were good for. 
That was the age when the Longworths 
and Hays and Adamses invaded Washing- 
ton, and Richardson built their houses. 
It was the fashion to live in gloomy, 
iron-barred, rough-hewn castles even if 
you had to pull down lovely Colonial 
houses to do so. But no American archi- 
tect trained in France ever does preserve 
American buildings; it is so much easier 
to destroy than carry on or create. I did 
other drawings in Washington that hot 
summer, but the most important were of 
the Corcoran Gallery. I had an invita- 
tion to attend the hanging of Guiteau, 
but declined; that, too, was later. Farney 
accepted and, I believe, fainted. Horrors, 
from war to trapeze artists and prize 
fighters, I always avoid; uplifting soul- 
ful Americans love them. In the fall I 
made many illustrations for Judge Tour- 
gee’s Our ConTINENT in Philadelphia. 
pee then came my first big commis- 
sion, and I have had big commissions 
ever since, not only all over America, but 
all over Europe, where I am, I am told, 
better known than here, though only the 
other day Violet Hunt wrote me there is 
a tribe arising which, like the Jews here, 
know not Joseph; but here they do know, 
though they pretend not to, and hate me 
too, and so do those “‘profits’’ of culture 
who have ruined art and literature in 
America as the same class has in England. 
But I shall stay in my native land—or 
what was my country—even though it 


isa dry, dreary desert. And this reminds 


me how in a fury in London in the White- 
friars Club or some other awful resort of 
High Street, middle-class Britons, some 
typical ones, to whom I had been giving 
some good advice about England, turned 
on me and said, ‘‘Well, if you dont like us, 


{ 188x | 





THE PHILADELPHIA STUDIO - METHOD OF ILLUSTRATION 85 


why dont you go home?”’ *‘Because I make 
you so mad bystaying,’’ I replied. [thought 
then that I should always stay more or less 
abroad; but the War settled that, and 
settled me here ; ended Europe ; ended the 
world; and for a time ended me. I had 
taken thought for the morrow, for the 
future; but it is over, my future is in 
the past. But it is good to remember and 
record the things that I know. The big 
Commission was to go to New Orleans 
with Cable. 
I MUST say a few words about the way 
in which my early drawings and etch- 
ings were engraved. When I began, most 
illustrations were drawn in reverse on box 
wood blocks in pen and ink or wash, 
mostly the latter. The lines of the artist's 
drawings were made into relief by the en- 
graver cutting away with a knife all the 
undrawn parts of the block, leaving the 
lines of the drawing standing like type— 
and these blocks could then be printed 
with type—this is the original method of 
wood cutting, the method used from the 
beginning of illustration, as soon as the 
scribe’s writing could be multiplied by 
printing, the method of to-day — only 
to-day the wood cut has vanished almost 
before the mechanical engraving as all 





aceasta aie - 


CALLOWHILL STREET BRIDGE PHILADELPHIA THE FIRST OF MY PHILADELPHIA ETCHINGS I 881 


hand work is vanishing. The wood en- 
graver, employing the tools of the steel 
engraver, learned also to translate washes’ 
into line, in the same way, and most of 
these early drawings and etchings of mine 
photographed on to the wood block were 
engraved in relief in this manner—but I 

was one of the last to draw on wood—or 
rather the earliest to escape the drudgery 

of it. Wonderful work was done by these 

engravers—but till the advent of photog- 

raphy, by means of which the artist’s 

drawing was preserved by being photo- 

graphed, all the originals were destroyed 

in the engraving and the engraver was the 

supreme critic and final authority—for 

nothing remained but the engraved block. 

Never shall I forget one experience. I was 

asked to make a drawing of a daisy field 

seen through a worm fence—to illustrate 

a nature poem. I drew it on the prepared 

block with pencil and wash, and when I 

got a proof the field of flowers I had so 

carefully drawn from nature to illustrate 

my author had become a rushing river. 

I protested, but the overlord, the engraver, 

wanted to know if he was to ruin his eyes 

engraving that flower stuff when it was 

easier to do ariver, and his engraving was 

far better than my drawing anyway. 


{188r | 


CHAPTER VIII: THE FIRST COMMISSION - START ON 
VISIT TO NEW ORLEANS WITH CABLE - MEET OSCAR WILDE 
THE VOYAGE OF THE MARK TWAIN DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI 


PN ar A am — gh Worthka — clon Xe, 


spn Sor 








SKETCH FROM A LETTER TO MISS ROBINS MRS. PENNELL ANNOUNCING THE TRIP TO NEW 
ORLEANS WITH G. W. CABLE TO ILLUSTRATE HIS ARTICLES ON THE CREOLES OF LOUISIANA 


NE day, in the fall of 1881, soon 

after my first article, “A Day in 

the Mash,”’ was published in 

Tue Century, Drake or Gilder 
wrote me to come to New York and, 
taking as usual the fast seven o'clock 
train, for we thought that train the fast- 
est in the world and the best, as every- 
thing then was, it landed me in Jersey 
City in time to see the big buildings 
come out of the mist. I walked across 
to Broadway, and took the horse car 
to 743, Scribner’s Building, which more 
or less is still there, and I climbed to 
the attic and there was Drake, the top 
of his dear bald head shining in the 
distance. I was at the office before ten 
o'clock, usually the first to arrive. I could 
not then, nor can I now, understand why 
people hate to be early, have to have day- 
light saving to get up—though I can 
understand the curfew to put drunks to 
bed—we want it badly. If not the first 
caller I had to wait in the outer room. 


There were magazines and illustrated 
papers to look at, and this was one of 
the few places where I could see them, 
as there were no free loafing libraries in 
those days. Sometimes others were wait- 
ing, students with portfolios and with- 
out ideas; engravers with blocks and 
proofs, deadly afraid of Drake, for he 
was an engraver, not a business man; 
artists with ideas or wants; process peo- 
ple with schemes; and once in a while 
some one who had arrived, Howard Pyle, 
looking like a pompous parson, towering 
sulkily in a corner, or Brennan, ina green 
overcoat with Roman coin buttons, would 
rush in, rush through the waiting room, 
and be greeted with a beaming smile by 
Drake, and that was the reason for his 
success, and, incidentally, the success of 
the Magazine and American illustration, 
for Drake not only knew but was willing 
to learn. I determined to follow Brennan 
—I dont mean in the green coat—but by 
getting in. I had my scheme and with 


{ 188x } 





Sosoteammestommesn ise nom se 





LEAF FROM A SKETCH BOOK FILLED WITH PORTRAITS OF PEOPLE BROUGHT BEFORE THE 
GRAND JURY ON WHICH I SERVED IN THE COURT HOUSE PHILADELPHIA - MOST 
OF THE DRAWINGS OF THIS PERIOD WERE DESTROYED « THIS BOOK ESCAPED THE WAR 





THE FIRST COMMISSION - TO ILLUSTRATE CABLE 89 


some excuse I would pass into the second 
room and talk to Miss Gleason, the Sec- 
retary. How I made up to her, till Drake 
would see me and call me in to him, and 
tell me, when he was done with me, to 
come back and we would go to lunch at 
the St. Dennis or the Vienna Café. My, 
what a spree, otherwise, one might wait 
all day. And I remember the rage of Pyle 
once—I heard about it after—when I 
went in to Drake before him. 

His morning there was a solemn talk 

with Roswell Smith, the President, 
and I was told all sorts of nice things by 
him—that they could depend on me to 
do things when I promised. I have never 
yet seen why an artist should not; lazi- 
ness or inability to do the work is the 
real reason. I do not believe in tempera- 
ment. And I was told, too, that the Edi- 
tors would like me to go to New Orleans 
and do the illustrations for a history of 


__ Louisiana that G. W. Cable was writing. 


And nothing was said about a contract 
or expenses. There were difficulties about 
getting away, for I was just twenty-one. I 
had voted for the first time and, with one 
exception, when I was fooled by Wilson, 
the last time. I am never settled long 
enough to get a vote. As the result of 
my first, I was summoned on a grand 
jury. I tried to get out of it, for I was 
working on my etchings of Philadelphia. 
I went to the Court and stood up and 
told the Judge I was sure the summons 
was for my father, that I was too inno- 
cent and ignorant to be of any use on a 
jury; and his answer was, “‘Sit down. 
By the time you get through you will 
know as much as any bald-head on it!”’ 
I sat down and continued to sit when we 
were told to stand up to be sworn, and 
when the Judge commanded me to stand 
and swear, I said I would not because I 
was a Friend, and so with a growl from 


him I was affirmed. For this Judge not 
so long before had summoned another 
Friend, who came reluctantly and walked 
up the Court Room with his hat on. He 
was in plain clothes. ‘Tell that man to 
take his hat off!’’ said the Judge to the 
Crier. ‘‘Hats off !’’ yelled the Crier. The 
Friend paid no attention. “Take his hat 
off,’ said the Judge. The Crier knocked 
it off. The Friend walked up to the Judge 
bareheaded and said quietly, “‘Judge, I 
give thee and thy Court in charge for 
assault and battery’’—and walked out 
hatless. And they had to bring him his 
hat and an apology. The Friends are ‘‘a 
peculiar people’’—or they were. I learned 
much on that day, that condemned pris- 
oners spent their time knitting and were 
fed on paté de foie gras and champagne, 
at least we were, and mad people had 
balls every day. I made many sketches in 
that old grand jury room in the basement 
of the old City Hall at the east end of the 
State House, which they have recently re- 
stored because—as it was tumbling down 
—TI made them do so; but no one in Phil- 
adelphia has said ‘Thank you”’ to me. 
There were other articles, among them 
one on the “‘State in Schuylkill,” the old- 
est fishing club in America, and though I 
was not asked to one of the Club’s func- 
tions at the old castle at Gray's Ferry, I 
have since assisted at their new place up 
the Delaware and spent delightful days 
with the governor and the citizens. 
ARLY in 1882 I left for the South. 
That was the winter Oscar Wilde 
discovered America. I had met him at 
the Lelands and heard him lecture—on 
the day when in velvet and knee breeches 
he faced a deputation from the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania, each with ‘‘a sun- 
flower ora lily’’ in his very modern hand; 
but Oscar brazened that tribute out. He 
and Archibald Forbes were on the train 


{ 188x | 


go CHAPTER VII: THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


to Washington, and I chummed up and 
then had nothing to say to them or they 
to me, and I did not know how to get 
away nor they how to get rid of me. 
From Washington I went to Louisville 
and made an etching, and then to Mem- 
phis, where I took a steamer down the 


river. I wrote an article on the boat, - 


Leland knocked it into shape for me, and 
it came out, “The Voyage of the Mark 
Twain,’ but anonymously. On the way 
down I met the man who shot Wilkes 
Booth and asked him to write his story 
for THe Century, and at a bank in Mem- 
phis I saw the son-in-law of Jefferson 
Davis and asked him for a letter to his 
father-in-law—to get him to write also 
for the Magazine. And these articles 
which I got for THE Century, with the 
first by Colonel Boteler preceded, or 
that by Colonel Boteler did, THE CrEn- 
tury War Series; though I had no idea 
of starting a War Series. I really was a 
born journalist and was so regarded when 
there was journalism in this country, in- 
stead of drivel, photographs and adver- 
tisement. There were good dinners and 
endless poker, which I dont play because 
cards bore me, on board the Mark Twain, 
as we ran all day by bare cotton-wood 
forests hung with dead men’s hair wav- 
ing in the wind; at night steering to 
the bank in the darkness and letting down 
the gangplank after a light was lit; and 
I remember the Jew drummer, told by 
the captain to jump when the boat swept 


by the shore a few feet off, who asked, 
t % = ag: 





\WaLconE 10 DOREY 
Peep nn 


‘“D’youse spec me to valk on de vatter?”’ 
“No,” said the captain, “You—”’ “‘Mark 
Twain,”’ yelled the man with the sound- 
ing pole, and the light went out and the 
boat went on; and the snags came up out 
of the water, and the rowboats dodged 
them, pulling far from the shore with 
passengers; and all day we sat by the 
texas, and talked with the captain and 
the pilot. Once some one on a point 
yelled and the boat crossed over. ‘Say, 
any you frens what want to see a scrap 
over to Arkinsaw City, why jest come 
long. I got traps and we kin drive over and 
see it beforethe boat gitsroun’’—and most 
went. I did not, for I dont like fights— 
save bull fights—and have never seen a 
man fight, but virtuous Americans love 
them. We panted, groaned and wheezed 
all day round the curves of the river, 
and got to the town at night and found 
everybody full and happy and the fight 
over. To-day they would have lost their 
money and been dry, too, or bloated with 
soft drinks and cold storage. Then we 
came into a flooded region, the river as 
wide as you could seeand people sitting on 
chimneys and in trees. We took some of 
them off and made short cuts where the 
water was deep enough—and the scenery 
and the people became delightfully miser- 
able. I saw from the railroad last year, 
going south from Memphis, their descen- 
dants sitting inthesameflooded countryon 
fence posts, waiting for the train to pass. 
You would not find such types inany other 
land,theyare thelast of the American race. 







ies 





SKETCH FROM THE TRAIN TO NEW ORLEANS 1921 








A DECK HAND ROUSTABOUT ON THE MARK TWAIN -: PORTRAIT IN MONOCHROME MADE ON 
THE TRIP DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI * WOOD ENGRAVING UNSIGNED PUBLISHED IN THE CENTURY 


CHAPTER IX: WITH CABLE IN NEW ORLEANS: A 
DELIGHTFUL MEMORY OF A DELIGHTFUL WINTER IN A 
CHARMING CITY WITH A CHARMING AUTHOR - ASKED TO 





































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































OLD NEW ORLEANS WASH DRAWING ENGRAVED ON WOOD BY J. F. JUNGLING + PRINTED 
IN THE CENTURY - ONE OF THE SERIES OF DRAWINGS MADE FOR CABLE’S CREOLE ARTICLES 


GREw tired of the river at Vicks- 
burg—lI had had a week of it—and 
took the train, which waded through 
the flooded country in the dark to 
New Orleans. I went to the St. Charles 
Hotel. I remember my delight in finding 
in a New Orleans paper an article about 
the drawings in THe Century I had made 
at Bethlehem ; papers took illustration 
seriously then. This I saw when I came 
down to the office in the morning: a big 
room with big chairs, big slouch-hatted 


men and big spittoons all about. And 
then there slid in a tiny little man with 
a black beard and bright eyes, and that 
was Cable. He was so tiny and so charm- 
ing, and he carried me off at once to find 
a place to stay. As the work was mostly 
to be about the Creoles—it was, he told 
me to be called THe Creorzs or Lout- 
sIANA—we walked over to Canal Street 
and turned down the Rue Royale, and 
right into France. America stopped in 
the middle of Canal Street. The people 


{ 1882 } 


904 CHAPTER IX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


on one side were American, on the other 
Creole. The signs on one side United 
States, on the other French. Newsboys 
yelled THe Picayune to the left and 
L’ABEILLE to the right, and in the Rue 
Royale we stepped into Cable’s stories. 
At the end of the street were the Cabildo 
and the Court House, and above and be- 
tween them the spires of the Cathedral, 
the great Place d’ Armes in front, with 
its palms; on both sides the Pontalba 
Mansions, dignified and imposing, each 
with empty storerooms on the ground 
floor and a black hall leading to stairs at 
the back; on the second story a verandah 
as big as a room and behind it a bigger 
one. All this we found after banging at 
the great front door with a sign Chambres 
a Louer on it, and there I was dumped 
down, without anything but my trunk 
and my school French. The landlady had 
not even Ollendorff American. Iwas pitch- 
forked right into France from Philadel- 
phia. Cable began to take me about, first 
to Madame Antoine’s, where I had my 
first real breakfast, and then all over the 
Creole town, his town, to Madame Del- 
phine’s, to Jean 4 Poquelin’s, to Belles 
Demoiselles plantation, to his home. I 
dont know what Cable is like now. He 
writes me once in a while, and he came to 
London some years ago and was taken up 
by a strange lot and I never saw him 
there. Then, he was just Cable, just a 
workman, proud of his work and his 
family, his church and his town. I found 
soon that in the French Quarter it was 
just as well not to know Cable, for at 
that time the Creoles could not stand him 
—I dont know why—but I think it was 
mainly because of THE GRANDISSIMES, 
and the famous scene of Raoul Innerarity 
and “‘Louisiana refusin to hanter the Un- 
yon.”’ But it is all vague—forty-two years 
ago—and I never madea note. Those were 


delightful days I spent drawing in courts, 
on plantations, atop the levee, up the 
bayous—new subjects, but the subjects of 
Rico and Fortuny, about which I raved, 
as did the other illustrators. These Mas- 
ters were far better worth study and far 
more difficult to follow than the slipshod 
methods and clumsy gods of the present, 
and that is the reason why they are not 
followed. All day I worked, stopping 
only to buy fresh bananas for lunch, if I 
had any, and thinking of the good dinner 
with wine which I learned to drink at 
night, for] became a pensionnaire at Ma- 
dame’s, and my dinners with wine cost 
eighty cents. ‘‘Dont you wish you did not 
have to eat?’’anew American said to me 
the other day. ‘‘No, I wish I did not have 
to do anything else,’’ Ianswered. But it 
was wasted, she had never dined, and a 
million like her are in the land to-day 
cocksure in the ‘‘valor of ignorance.”’ 
NE morning, after a great storm, 
there wasa telegram from Harper's: 
“The New Orleans levee will break and 
destroy the city; draw it.’’ So, though I 
could not see any signs of the catastrophe 
save that the ships and steamboats looked 
down, more and more down, on the town 
as the river rose, I did it—the river break- 
ing in and the first house going over. I 
was on the spot and drew the house, 
Canal Street a torrent, horse cars upside 
down, the Cathedral spires jammed with 
people, the prisoners in the calaboose 
drowning, and all the rest of it. I sent the 
drawings off to Harrer’s WEEKLY—and 
the levee didnt break and the article did 
not appear. I forget if they paid for it. 
But the levee did break below the city, 
and a long day Cable and I passed there, 
watching the water tumbling, roaring, 
rushing through the crevasse and spreading 
out over the cane fields, the odor from the 
sugar mills on the other side of the flood 


{ 1882 | 








G. W. CABLE - PORTRAIT BY ABBOTT H. THAYER FROM THE ORIGINAL IN THE AMERICAN 


ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS : THIS PORTRAIT A MONOCHROME WAS ENGRAVED BY 


TIMOTHY COLE AND PUBLISHED IN THE CENTURY + THAYER, COLE AND I ALL BECAME MEM- 
BERS OF THE ACADEMY AND I SUCCEEDED TO THE CHAIR FORMERLY OCCUPIED BY THAYER 


96 CHAPTER IX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRAIGE: 


filling the air. On the levee a long line 
of darkies, each with a little bundle and 
a big umbrella, tramped toward the town, 
and the planter on his big horse in front 
of his big house, said: “‘See them niggers 
—you give ‘em freedom—now theyre 
getting it. "Fore the waw Id had to 
feed ‘em for six months; now they can 
feed themselves or you Yanks can.”’ 
This was not so long after the Civil War, 
and those were real experiences and not 
inexperiences as we had of the World 
War. The people down there had been 
through the war; up in the North I 
dont believe the patriots knew any more 
about the Civil War than about the World 
War—those who stayed home and did 
the shouting, when the world died. 
O THER days we would cross to Algiers 
where the darky quarters still stood 
and the darkies still lived more or less as 
they did before the war. And there were 
days on plantations; days in and about 
the old prison, murderers and boys and 
debtors wandering loose together from 
sunrise, cooped up in cells at sunset, 
when the foul black bats, like the spirits 
of crime, with ghoulish chatterings, came 
out in clouds from under the eaves and 
flew shrieking about the dismal deserted 
square; visits to the old voudou priestess 
from whom we could get nothing; and 
to the battlefield, where we got full evi- 
dence of the stupidity of the British in 
one of the few battles they ever fought 
by themselves, and of course were beaten 
—they even had Hessians in the Revolu- 
tion and were beaten then; and visits to 
people who had done things, like Judge 
Gayarréand Lafcadio Hearn, I think, who 
was there, though I heard he treated Cable 
scandalously, just as more than one thief 
and imitator did later; and visits to 
church, morning, afternoon and evening, 
with Cable and his family, after a day 


of which Mark Twain said, ‘‘I got nearer 
to Heaven than I hope I ever shallagain.”’ 
But a little later he had a birthday and 
Cable made each of his friends send Mark 
an unpaid telegram of congratulation, and 
he was delighted till the bill came and 
it was about a hundred dollars. And E., 
the day Cable died, just as this chapter 
was going to press, reminded me that one 
morning, when Cable was singing and talk- 
ing in our city, Major Pond sent us a tele- 
gram telling us to come at once to his 
hotel. I found her, and we went, and there 
was Pond looking most serious, and he 
took us upstairs and into Cable’s room 
and he was in bed, and we were fright- 
ened. But as we commenced to ask what 
had happened, Cable sprang out of the 
sheets and blankets full dressed, and I took 
the party to the old Bellevue and we had 
so good a lunch that Cable told Pond he 
must stop there the next time, but that 
excellent lunch served by the excellent 
Bolt nearly bankrupted me. And I remem- 
ber too that the last time I saw Conant of 
Harper's WEEKLY just before he disap- 
peared, and the only time I ever dined 
with the Clover Club, which I found stu- 
pid, was in the old Bellevue. A little later 
Lavery came to America and stopped there 
and he had been told to beware of mos- 
quitoes for they would poison him. And 
so, when he returned late at night it was 
in the fall, he shut his windows before he 
lit the gas, and then got undressed and 
into bed, and just as he was falling asleep 
he heard a loud buzzing. He jumped up, 
lit the light, hunted all over the room, 
but could not find the beast. He lay awake 
a long while before sleep came and then, 
all of a sudden, he was waked again by 
the buzzing, but again could find nothing. 
He looked out of the window and then he 
saw and knew that it was the last trolley 
at night and the first in the morning which 


{ 1882 | 





® 


¥ 
LETTER FROM G. W. CABLE TO JOSEPH PENNELL CONGRATULATING HIM ON 
_ HIS MARRIAGE TO MISS ELIZABETH ROBINS AT PHILADELPHIA JUNE 4 1884 








q 
: 
: 
; 
a 





WITH CABLE IN NEW ORLEANS - I SEE JEFFERSON DAVIS 99 


he had heard. They did not have trolleys 
in Glasgow in those days, but we did, and 
mosquitoes too. 
T HERE was a trip when a schooner was 
hired and the Frenchman came along, 
a mysterious Frenchman who wore a hel- 
met and eyeglasses. We picked the schooner 
up on Lake Pontchartrain and meant to 
sail up and down the bays and bayous, 
but the wind and tide did not mean us to, 
and we spent days amongst islands inhab- 
ited only by distant flamingoes and near 
pelicans with everlasting alligators on the 
shore. The Frenchman—who was later to 
mix up diplomacy and brick-making in 
Mexico—had a passion for sport, but he 
was so near-sighted he had to jam his eye- 
glasses on and hold his pith helmet while 
he let off his gun at the pelicans, who 
stared at us and looked at him sadly as 
they shook the shots out of their feathers. 
The alligators merely opened their eyes and 
shut their mouths when he fired at them 
before they rolled off their logs. I recall 
trying to control a jibing boom which 
chucked me right out of the ship; and 
the mosquitoes; and the big seas in the 
river down by Eads Port and Pilot Town. 
In the evenings we would pull up by an 
island and the captain would make won- 
derful gumbo soup and mix rice and 
tomatoes and things out of cans, for 
there was nothing but sand and pelicans 
on the islands. Then Cable would sing, 
and sometimes tell a new story—and 
down there I heard for the first time of 
Lost Island—and all this was before he 
sang or talked in public. But at last we 
gave in to the head winds, boarded a 
steamer coming uptheriverand it brought 
us back to town. 

o one could have been kinder than 
N Cable and some of the people to 
whom I had letters, for my mother died 
while I was down there, and my father 


almost died too. But I made my draw- 
ings and ate my dinners at Madame An- 
toine’s, and helped by the people I met, 
the time passed quickly, if sadly. Carnival 
came and I did that for Harper’s WEEKLY, 
and Parsons, the Art Editor, said he would 
only print the drawing I sent if I signed 
my name to it, so afraid of it was he, and 
I answered—I had learned how to answer 
editors—that I would not let him print it 
if my name was not signed to it. There 
was also a series of etchings of the houses 
in which Cable’s people lived, and Mr. 
Edward L. Tinker pointed out to me that 
Lafcadio Hearn wrote an article about them 
in THe Century, but I do not remember 
ever seeing him. There was also a scheme 
that Cable and I should go to the West 
Indies and do them, but it never came off. 
The Cable work was as interesting as any 
I ever did, because it took me to a foreign 
land, as Louisiana was then. How the na- 
tives hated Americans. One day, as I was 
sketching, a Creole man got in front of me 
and I asked him to move. He felt for his 
knife, saying, ‘Hi ham a Creole and you 
har han Hamerican, and for feefty censa I 
will cut you hinto small piesces.’’ But there 
were Creole ladies; and how charming 
they were and what times we had. The 
last I saw of Cable he stood on the levee, 
seeing me off, beside him Jefferson Davis, 
seeing his daughter off to New York. I got 
back and the Editors liked the drawings. 
Some of them had character. I learned 
what sunlight was, tried to draw light, 
learned something of beauty of form, and 
that the South was not the North, and 
people seemed to like them too, but they 
only made me want to see new subjects. 
They were all engraved on wood and 
printed well, most of them. There was 
something else when one returned. Drake 
would give you a cast, or a Russian lamp, 
or a coin, with your voucher, which you 


{ 1882 | 


100 CHAPTER IX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


presented at a straight and narrow brass- 
barred window to a most severe cashier- 
ess, who glared at you as she paid out 
the notes and it seemed as if she was 
tearing out her heart, and she scared 
every artist to death. Only, if it was near 
lunch or dinner time, there was Drake 
behind you, and he carried you off to 
Dorlan’s and fed you on scallops, or else 
home to dinner and to a show and after- 
wards gave you lobster and porter at 
midnight, in the dear, dead days. 
EFORE I left the office the morning I 
Baie from New Orleans, Gilder 
asked me to go to Italy and illustrate a 
series of articles with Howells on Tus- 
cany. Then I hurried off to Germantown, 
my father alone, my mother dead, the 
house shut up, but there was a year of 
work before I went to Europe—then the 
hope and the dream of the young artist. 
But in those days American artists were 
properly trained, studying here with the 
hope of Europe. Now we have scarce a 


i 
i 


f 
ee) \ 





he 
eel 


Po 
‘ 


er * 
j yal 
he a 


A FULL RIVER FROM THE LEVEE - 


decently taught painter and the ignorant 
duffers glory in their ignorance and in that 
they have never been to Europe. They 
steal their art from photographs and fake 
it in museums—just as the British did in 
the mid-Victorian age, which is our age 
here to-day. 

F this country is to become a world 
| power in art we must adopt world 
methods—or the coming artists must— 
we must carry on tradition. Students can 
be trained in some of our art schools per- 
fectly well up to a certain point—but 
after that, despite the great and still grow- 
ing collections here which can be and 
must be studied if we mean to progress, 
the student must travel, here first if you 
like, and then abroad to see the old work 
in place and to see how it was created to 
fit in with its surroundings and to see the 
men and the methods of the present, and 
learn from both. This was the method of 
the past, the right one; the way Diirer 
worked in the past, Abbey in the present. 







PENCIL DRAWING ENGRAVED ON WOOD BY W. R. POWELL 


{ 1882 | 








CHAPTER X: THE JOURNEY TO EUROPE - THE CROSS 
ING - LONDON - MEET ABBEY AND PARSONS: PARIS: DOWN 
TO ITALY - MY IMPRESSIONS OF HOWELLS AND. FLORENCE 


er 








WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS AND MISS MILDRED HOWELLS - FROM THE RELIEF BY AUGUSTUS 
ST. GAUDENS - NOW IN THE POSSESSION OF THE HOWELLS FAMILY - DONE AT A LATER DATE 


SIsaid, the Editors asked methe 
; day I returned from New Orleans 
. to go to Europe and illustrate, 
; : with twelve etchings, a series of 

articles to be written on Tuscany by W. D. 
Howells. They offered me for a print from 
each plate I should etch fifty dollars, 
my passage out and back, and a railroad 
ticket to Florence from London. I knew 
my name would be made and I jumped 
at the chance of six months’ work for 
six hundred dollars. I thought I was paid 
like a prince for the plates, and in the end 
Iwas. Later I found out that the Editors 
had offered the same, or a larger sum to 
Charles A. Platt, and he had refused it. 
Well, I am now known in Europe artis- 
tically, and the etchings made me known. 
An illustrator receives more publicity from 





a magazine which publishes illustrations 
than any other artist, for though large 
numbers of people may see in one city an 
art exhibition, an illustrated magazine 1s 
an att gallery for the world—or was in 
those days, now I fear the illustrator 
must do other work to be remembered. 
Even Drake used to say what he had done 
was not remembered—but his name will 
not altogether die. The same day they 
paid me for my four months’ work in New 
Orleans—before the drawings were pub- 
lished. Iam giving these figures and facts 
for one purpose—to show that I loved my 
profession as an illustrator; for I was now 
an illustrator, and I worked at it because 
I loved it. My father was not so enthu- 
siastic. He said I would have earned far 
more by this time from the railroad. But 


{ 1882 } 


102 


I earned enough to live as I wanted to 
live and was to have the chance to make 
the etchings. I do not know what others 
got, or get; and I do not care. I accepted 
the Italian commission with one aim in 
view. I wanted to do the etchings, and to 
see Europe and to study art. The pay 
helped me to try to do better work than 
my rivals and by such aid I have been 
able to keep on drawing and etching all 
my life, and my knowledge of Europe 
and European art has enabled me to see 
America. That is the one way, by study and 
travel in Europe, not by sulking at home, 
that the best American art has been cre- 
ated. The present belief that art is an 
easy road tofortune I knownothing about, 
save from the letters and inquiries of stu- 
dents asking me to direct them to it, or 
by watching some of my students wait- 
ing for inspiration, or American painters 
hanging on to millionaires. Art means 
the hardest work in the world, and the 
more ability the artist has, the harder he 
works. Unless he can win in art by fight- 
ing for a position among his fellows as an 
artist, he is worse than nobody. But art 
has become the business of nobodies, the 
occupation of art masters, the sport of 
those who would do good to art and who 
encourage failures, a refuge for incom- 
petents who fill art schools, especially 
those out to make money and a social 
standing quick—the art does not matter 
—and for newspaper reporters who call 
themselves critics. Recently I talked to 
an art school with two thousand pupils 
and I was careful to tell them I did not 
believe two of them would ever become 
artists. I have not been asked to talk 
there again. I was asked to award prizes 
at another art school, and as the works 
in competition were not signed, I gave 
the prizes to the three I thought best. I 
was told by the master, after I had 


CHAPTER X - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


awarded the prizes, that they were all 
by the same student. The master asked 
me to change the awards. I refused. He 
told me I knew nothing about teaching 
att, which was to give as many prizes to 
as many pupils as possible. That would 
attract students, and he was paid by 
fees. That is not the way I teach—I do 
not offer prizes to my pupils. . 
HE TUSCAN commission was given me 
in May, 1882, but I did not start until 
the following January. There were New 
Orleans drawings to finish, for I could 
not then do everything from nature as 
I try to now. I had made many sketches 
and studies, carrying out the good ones, 
trying to correct the bad, and several 
etchings, which had to be printed. Any 
sureness of hand or head I may have ob- 
tained is entirely owing to the hard 
training I went through with the definite 
idea of beating my contemporaries by 
better work. I also did a number of 
drawings of old Philadelphia for Har- 
PER’s WEEKLY, to illustrate a series of 
articles by E. on the Bi-Centennial of the 
City. I was even put on a City Commis- 
sion for the Celebration; now I am care- 
fully kept off. And together we, E. and 
I, did a lot of work for a forgotten paper, 
Our ConTINENT, edited by an almost for- 
gotten author, Judge Turgee. The Art 
Editor was Miss Emily Sartain—the only 
trained woman art editor I ever knew, 
and she did know. The Philadelphia etch- 
ings were printed in THe CenTurRY, with 
an atticle by E. They were reproduced 
wonderfully by wood engraving—the 
work of wonderful wood engravers. An 
article by Mrs. Van Rensselaer on Ameri- 
can Etchers, most of whom could not etch, 
also contained wood engravings from my © 
prints. These were amazing examples of 
misdirected energy, but they were amaz- 
ing and made, or helped greatly to make, 


{ 1882 | 














ee li BEA: Ss lag icc rtm, tian 


THE PONTE VECCHIO FLORENCE + THE FIRST ETCHING MADE IN EUROPE - REPRODUCED 
FROM THE TRIAL PROOF IN THE COLLECTION OF MR. JOHN F. BRAUN OF PHILADELPHIA 












2 
“2 
- 
] 





THE JOURNEY TO EUROPE - THE YEAR BEFORE I WENT 105 


American wood engraving known all over 
the world of art. But a photo-engraving 
reproduces an etching better—one of the 
few things it can do well. 

N the same summer of 1882 I went with 

Mr. Buel and Mr. Johnson to the Union 
and Confederate Reunions at Fredericks- 
burg and in The Wilderness, Toe Century 
having begun to collect material for their 
War Series. The Reunion in The Wilder- 
ness was the most extraordinary I ever 
attended. On the battlefield a Confeder- 
ate parson told how, in the midst of the 
week of battle, Stonewall Jackson rode 
out of the Confederate line, into the smoke 
and fog hanging over the swamp, on the 
corduroy road, to reconnoitre with his 
staff, of which the parson was a member; 
and how, right in front of them, appeared 
a Northern picket, who shot Jackson 
down; and how they lifted him up and 
got saplings and made a litter and car- 
ried him back towards the Confederate 
lines; and how again out of the smoke 
and fog came a picket of his own men 
and, taking the group for Northern troops, 
killed nearly the whole staff—and then 
he broke down. The Northern men told 
their version of that story, and ‘‘Dixie’’ 
was played and “Yankee Doodle,’’ and 
it ended with “The Star Spangled Ban- 
ner.’’ Twenty years after, one had only 
to wander a little way in the swamp to 
find rusty guns, cartridge cases, skeletons; 
the unknown soldier rotted where he fell; 
flies and not Red Cross nurses saw his 
death. Afterwards both sides talked it 
out. This Reunion was magnificent, and 
I saw and heard history at Fredericks- 
burg. One story told by a Confederate 
officer was that my future brother-in-law, 
Colonel (now General) Henry T. Doug- 
las, who may have been present at the 
Reunion, was in command of the Con- 
federate Artillery in the cemetery on a 


hill, and he fired away all his shot and 
shell into the Union forces under Ben 
Butler, or Burnside, advancing across a 
level, open field a mile wide, after they 
had forded the river. And then Colonel 
Douglas smashed the gravestones and fired 
them. “Why did you send your men over 
that river and across that field in broad 
daylight?’ said the Confederate officer. 
“To win the fight,”’ said Butler—or was 
it Burnside? “‘But you didnt, and we kept 
the graves.”’ 
P ERHAPS the best story of the Battle of 
the Wilderness, or any battle, is Ste- 
phen Crane’s Rep BapGE or CouRaGE. 
It is scarcely known, and he and his 
friend, Harold Frederic, are neglected for 
the time. It was unbelievable to listen 
to this exchange of history between the 
men who made it. Unfortunately most 
of them could not write, as THE CEN- 
TuRY articles prove, and few who could 
write did. I have seen the German staff 
winning the battle of Mars-la-Tour in 
lectures, given thirty years after, to their 
young officers on the field, but there were 
no French officers to tell their side of the 
fierce fight. I have seen English officers 
losing sham battles before an audience 
of Royalty and gentry out for a day’s 
sport. I have seen ‘‘the French army 
amusing themselves,’ as a peasant said 
of the manoeuvers we once watched, over 
country they later died for. But never 
before was seen, never again will be seen, 
two foes fighting their battles on the 
field peacefully, certainly not in America, 
where the spirit of reconciliation is as 
dead or deader than the bloody shirt, or 
Bok’s forgotten peace plan. We have lost 
the spirit and the faith that won the 
Civil War, though there was no reason 
for that war, and it would not have hap- 
pened had it not been for those who 
brought it on for their own gain, the 


{ 1882 | 


106 


predecessors—not the ancestors—of the 
prohibitionists, the cowardly, money- 
loving, decent-living-hating tribe who 
have wrecked the land they have stolen. 
Is a prohibitionist or an advertising peace 
peddler a true American? How much bet- 
ter, cleaner and saner was the world, or 
these United States, then than now— 
then, when we lived decently, played 
decently, ate decently, drank decently, 
read decent books and magazines, and 
were happy. Fools, fanatics, reformers, 
uplifters, advertisers, females and the 
War have wrecked us and we have be- 
come the joke of creation, but a sad joke, 
and the new Americans are too stupid to 
see it. But they will, and run, and the 
country will fall. 
M ucH work kept me busy all the fall 
and was only interrupted by getting 
out of the studio Poore and I still shared; 
for we could stand each other no longer. 
By the end of the year I was ready to 
start abroad. To the commission for the 
Tuscan etchings, THe Century had add- 
ed another for drawings, to illustrate an 
article by Andrew Lang on Edinburgh, 
which helped out the money problem. 
But the voyage to Europe was a great 
undertaking. My father came to New 
York with me and saw the ship the day 
before she sailed, and I am sure wanted 
to go. But he went back to Philadelphia 
alone and sad the same night—after he 
kissed me—saying his only friend was 
leaving him. But I stayed at a boarding 
house and took a charming young lady I 
knew to a concert, and she confided in 
me, and somehow, before I left, I had ar- 
ranged her engagement with a distin- 
guished young man, and they have lived 
happily ever since. That was Professor 
Holmes, who tried to get me on the Goy- 
ernment Survey. On the steamer I was 
shown, by a Canadian, a copy of the latest 


[1883 } 


CHAPTER X - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Century, with ‘‘The Voyage of the Mark 
Twain’’ in it, and I became a big person, 
for it meant far more then to be in THE 
Century than it ever could now to be 
among the ads. of THe Lapies’ Home 
Journat, and to different people, too. 
I do not remember anything about the 
voyage on the Alaska, except that I was 
in the bows under a donkey engine and 
it was always at work; and when I 
escaped it, to go to the dining saloon 
that adjoined the galley, the smells were 
solid, for it was so rough everything was 
sealed up, save the concert for the mil- 
lionaire sailors’ mission, which was held 
as usual. I do not even remember get- 
ting to Liverpool. But I do remember 
going over with the Canadian to Chester 
and eating a ‘‘veal and hammer”’ in the 
Rows and seeing my first cathedral, and 
on to Oxford, and staying at the Mitre, 
and bumping my head and stubbing my 
toes continually in that respectable home 
of uneven antiquity. And then we went 
on to London, but I cannot imagine how 
we came in at Charing Cross; or my im- 
pressions are confused with those of a 
few months later, when I came back 
from Venice. Certainly it seems as if it 
was then that I first crossed a bridge and 
saw and smelt London—the sight and the 
smell that have never left me, though, 
little did I think that for more than 
thirty years I would know this sight and 
this smell every day and every night from 
our windows. 

puT up at the Craven Hotel, as my 

Canadian advised me. He had been 
fearfully impressed because Leland had 
given me a letter to Walter Besant. I 
was rather impressed myself as I left it 
at the Savile Club. In answer, Besant 
promptly asked me to a dinner of the 
Rabelaisians to meet Lowell, and at that 
I was so scared that I left London almost 


i 
: 
. 








Pe esOURNEY TO BUROPE «THE TRIP TO ITALY 


' at once. In the meantime, I had been to 
Cassell’s, where I learned that Henley 
was the Editor of Tot MaGazineE oF ART, 
though Henley never let it be known, or 
signed his letters, as a good editor does 
not; and he gave me a commission to do 
Urbino. I went also to THe Art Jour- 
NAL and got another on Barga, both to 
be written by Vernon Lee. And I went to 
Harper's at Sampson Low’s, where I met 
W. M. Laffan, and he took me to Abbey 
and Parsons’ studio, where I saw them for 
the first time, and they gave me my first 
drink of whisky, and Comyns Carr, com- 
ing in, tried on the corsets of the model, 
who was posing for ‘‘Sally in Our Alley,”’ 
and asked us all to dinner. And Abbey 
told me that Leighton wanted to see me, 
having seen my etchings, and I got more 
frightened than ever and eager to be off 
for Italy. Had I stayed, of course, like 
almost all the rest of the American artists 
then in London, I should have become 
an R.A.; but I have now so many other 
Academies that one more does not mat- 
ter. Before I left London I lunched at the 
Cheshire Cheese, the only place I could 
find open on Sunday, save St. Paul’s— 
and that only for service—the pubs only 
open between services—and as I went out 
of the Cheese, full of pudding and porter, 
one waiter said to the other, “‘Gent ‘asn’t 
guv me nothink; ’e wants to guv yer some- 
think ’Arry.’’ And I dropped all the sil- 
ver I had in his hand. And in London too, 
I felt that horrible loneliness in the big 
crowds in the streets of the big city. 
O n the way to Paris I held the hand 
ofa French maid on the steamer, but 
she helped me when we landed, for my 
French even after New Orleans did not 
go far. In Paris I ran into Platt, who had 
come over before me. He gave mea lunch 
that was better than those in New Orleans 
and took me to the Luxembourg, where 


107 


—or it must have been in an exhibition— 
I saw Bastien Lepage’s ‘‘Joan of Arc.’’ I 
was paralyzed by it. How it has changed, 
—or 1s it 1 who have changed?—since it 
got to the Metropolitan. And then, after 
trying to talk French when I got lost, 
coming home at midnight—I was stop- 
ping at the Hotel Castiglione, where I 
had spent a lot of the six hundred dollars 
—I started for Florence. On the way down 
to Italy I remember only five things. The 
sunset view from the train at Lugano, 
which was heaven—I have never seen it 
since and shall never see the like of it 
again. The man in the compartment with 
me who took off his shoes and set them 
up on the seat opposite—we were alone 
—and talked to them and beat them, just 
before we got to the St. Gothard tunnel; 
I left the carriage at Goschenen, which 
was probably what he wanted. The climb 
up in the winter snow, dark and cold 
to the dreary, coal smoke laden, black 
tunnel, and the sun, warmth and beauty 
of Italy where we came into spring leav- 
ing winter behind. The dark streets of 
Milan, the hotel bus, and the Dazio 
man who stuck his head in and scared 
me to death when he looked at me and 
asked me if I had anything to declare, in 
Italian, of which I did not understand a 
word, for I thought him a brigand and 
the whole thing a hold-up. And the morn- 
ing after, the view coming down the 
mountains to Pistoia, all Tuscany beyond, 
and then the city of Florence and the 
Hotel Minerva. I did not see Howells till 
after dinner, when he took me to his rooms 
and introduced me to the family. He did 
not like me, I somehow felt at once, and 
I dont think he ever did. But the family 
were charming. He was most impressed 
with himself then. He and James were the 
American authors; they even got in Puncn, 
standing on each other's heads and only 


{ 1883 | 


108 CHAPTER X*- THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


reaching Thackeray's knee. Though How- 
ells stood me while in Italy, I know I 
was very fresh, he had little use for me 
and never praised anything I ever did, 
though he did buy two Venetian draw- 
ings. Finally he forgot to answer my let- 
ters, and took in the end to illustrating 
his travel books with commercial photo- 
graphs. His want of interest in art, or in 
my art, is characteristic of many of the 
authors with whom I have adventured. 
And yet, he was connected with artists 
and his son is an architect and cared for 
things even then, and his daughter was a 
charming Lirrte Girt AMONG THE OLD 
Masters. I do not know why it was, but 
We were not simpatico, even from the be- 
ginning. But I went to Italy to make my 
etchings and they were what I cared for. 
All day and every day I worked at them, 
drawing them straight on the plates, and 
that is why they and all other proofs by 


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- ETCHING MADE IN FLORENCE 1883 
PUBLISHED FIRST AS A WOOD ENGRAVING IN THE CENTURY MAGAZINE 


etchers who draw from nature on the cop- 
per are reversed in printing. I even tried 
to bite them out of doors as I drew them 
—Hamerton had recommended that—but 
only once, for I could not see and I swal- 
lowed the fumes of acid as I bent over the 
flat easel which held the bath, and then I 
upset that. One experiment was enough, 
but the crowd enjoyed it, especially when 
the fumes ate the skin off my throat and I 
spat blood all about, and they wanted to 
send for the Misericordia brothers and take 
me to a hospital, but by that time so great 
a crowd had gathered that the police came 
out and drove us all away. The poor artist 
always draws a crowd he dont want, the 
poor pedlar rarely gets the crowd he longs 
for, and the police move us both on. But 
sometimes the artist turns. Whistler would 
threaten to stab the nearest with a needle. 
I could spatter them with ink as I pre- 
tended to clean my dirty clogged up pen. 





+ FROM THE PROOF IN THE NEW YORK 


[1883 } 





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Sie PER Xl PERORENTINE DAYS - A WINTER IN 
ITALY WITH HOWELLS - DUVENECK’S BOYS AND OTHERS 





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THE SWING OF THE ARNO PISA + WOOD ENGRAVING FROM THE ETCHING BY R. C. COLLINS 
PRINTED IN THE CENTURY + TO ILLUSTRATE ONE OF HOWELLS’ ARTICLES ON TUSCAN CITIES 


NE or two days and nights of 

the respectability of the Min- 

erva Hotel, where the Howells 

were staying, was enough for 
me. I may have been enough for the 
Howells family. They dined in their rooms 
and I was invited; but I mostly went to 
the table d’héte, for I was very young 
and very keen, and wanted to see new 
Italians. I found British old maids. So 
when Howells saw that I did not appreci- 
ate the hotel, he suggested a lodging with 
a respectable Swiss lady who had a number 
of German archeological or architectural 


authorities and C. Howard Walker, just 
back from discovering Cyprus or Cythe- 
rea, or somewhere, for boarders. Here I 
was to learn Italian. One lesson given in 
German by the Swiss landlady was all I 
had; I had had one in Philadelphia, be- 
fore I left, from a Hungarian Jew; with 
these two my language lessons ended. The 
first night in the pensione was very cold 
and what is called a frate was put in my 
bed. Now a frate is a long-handled scal- 
dino, and a scaldino is a covered copper 
dish to hold burning charcoal, and they 
stick it under the bedclothes within a frame- 


[1883 | 


I1o CHAPTER XI - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


work to keep it from setting the bed afire, 
and leave it there to warm the bed. When 
the bed is hot and you are ready to turn 
in, you should put the apparatus outside 
the door. I kept it in my room and, in a 
heavenly state of comfort, blew out the 
smelly Roman three-wick oil lamp and 
went to sleep. Some time later, I found my- 
self in my nightgown being hammered and 
punched and rapidly rushed up and down 
in my bare feet in the snow on the flat 
roof of the house. And when I became 
sufficiently roused, I was told in many 
tongues that no one was sure whether I 
was an utter fool or a determined suicide, 
as I had shut myself up in my room with 
a burning pan of charcoal. Whether they 
smelt the charcoal or missed the scaldino, 
I do not know, but they got me out in 
time. I had a headache for a week. 

HAD had enough of friendly help-and 
I chose a place for myself on the Borgo 
Ognissanti—a big flat of two rooms with 
a fireplace and a terrace. I think it cost 
twenty-five francs—maybe fifty—a month. 
I could have my coffee and rolls and a 
light; nothing else. I chose it because it 
was opposite the American Consulate, and 
I had my letters sent there. I told Howells 
what I had done. I think he was alarmed. I 
told him the padrone spoke French, though 
I could not understand it; it was perfect 
Florentine, he chucked his h’s about like a 
Cockney. Howells suggested that I should 
still dine at the hotel. Incidently, I might 
say the Florentines called him ‘‘Woulsey’’, 
while I became “‘Pennelli senza 1.’’ His 
brother-in-law, Larkin Mead, the sculp- 
tor, who lived in Florence, said that he 
would look after me and introduce me to 
“the boys’’ who dined at a trattoria in 
the Via Guelfa near him. He took me 
there; they were ‘‘Duveneck’s boys’’, or 
what was left of them—Rolshoven, Grover, 
Freeman and Mills—and he dumped me 


{ 1883 } 


down on them. But anybody who had not 
studied with Duveneck was nobody. I 
thought I should learn Italian now, and it 
was the purest Florentine I acquired. To 
this day I ask for a hasa and a havallo, 
or a hamici, and say ja. Mead impressed 
them with the fact that they must look 
after me, or at any rate endure me. The 
trattoria had no name, only a number on 
the house, and I forget that. For us it was 
The Trattoria. It was an ordinary tratto- 
ria, mostly wineshop in front, then counter 
to left, tables to right; a-vaulted passage 
next, rooms branching out on either side, 
the favorite one so narrow that the first 
man went to the further end of the table 
and the rest took their places on each side 
as they came in. Didi, the pretty little 
lame daughter, who waited—there was 
another older one who married at once— 
either spun the plates along the table or 
else climbed on it or crawled under it when 
she served. I dont suppose we could have 
found a worse and more expensive place 
of the sort in Florence; but we loved Didi, 
and she loved us, and when anything hap- 
pened, burst into tears and violently em- 
braced whoever was nearest. The mother 
was rather cross and the father was only 
heard growling in the kitchen. Ifthemenu 
was limited, we invented new names for 
it. Only a few come back; dotteri nocie, 
stickei ostra and bestecca, of which there 
were varieties; bestecca di manzo and be- 
stecca di bestecca for swell occasions. One 
of the other words istheequivalent fornuts ; 
the other is translated toothpick, and be- 
stecca might go in Volaptik. All Florence 
got to know of that trattoria and all sorts 
and conditions of men—and a few wom- 
en—came : Howells, Mead, William Sharp, 
Stillman, I think James Bryce, the Duke 
of Teck, “‘the only Jones’’, and all the 
other artists save Arthur Lemon,who said 
he would not go in, once he saw the out- 


4 
q 
4 
; 
i 








FLORENTINE DAYS - BOCKLIN AND THE BOYS 


side. The most constant was Arnold Bock- 
lin, whom ‘‘the boys’’ loved. He would 
come, talk long over the bad dinner with 
Rolshoven in German, get the salad bowl 
or a soup plate and a from his pocket, 
then take his pipe or 

a straw, and make 
soap bubbles, look- 
ing at them with the 
little smelly three- 
branched lamp _be- 
hind. And there it 
was inthattrattoria, 
with soap bubbles in 

a soup plate, that 
Bocklin found his 
iridescent dreams of 
beauty; or I suppose 
so, for I was totally 
unable to exchange 
anything with him 
but smiles. They said 
he had a fountain too, 
up in the Villa Lan- 
dor where he lived, © 
with a basin about as 
big as a bathtub, and 
that Venus and Au- 
rora and mermaids 
and mere men sport- 
ed there beneath the 
cypresses, as you may 
see them in the German and Swiss galleries 
to-day. The popularity of the placewhen 
I arrived was not so great; “‘the boys”’ 
had just moved in. There had been another 
out by the Porta Romana, in which many 
decorations, mostly in charcoal, had been 
made by Duveneck, Alexander, Bacher, 
De Camp, and the rest. These became fa- 
mous and “‘the boys’’ determined to give 
their lady friends a dinner and show them. 
The padrone prepared a banquet and, to 
have things perfect, an hour or so before 
the company arrived covered the decora- 


MY OF DESIGN :- 





TIMOTHY COLE PAINTED BY HIS SON - DI- 
PLOMA PORTRAIT IN THE NATIONAL ACADE- 


COLE WAS AT THIS TIME 
BEGINNING HIS WOOD ENGRAVINGS FOR 
THE CENTURY OF OLD ITALIAN MASTERS 


iit 


tions with whitewash. Then they moved 
to the Via Guelfa and the padrone was 
disgusted with ‘‘the boys.”’ 
Qe came at times. There was the 
Sunday-school teacher from Canada- 
ragua, who had aban- 
doned wife, family 
and country in order 
to learn to paint in 
Italy. Then he was 
going to the Holy 
Land to paint that 
—and, eventually, 
something was to 
happen in Skaneate- 
les. What did happen 
to the kindly giant, 
I do not know. And 
there was another art- 
istman whohad made 
enough, touching up 
pictures in churches 
at home, to travel 
abroad and study.He 
always had his re- 
ceipted bills in his 
pockets and they read 
something like this: 
To rebuildinga fiery 


furnace for Shad- 
rach, Meshech and 


Abednego . 1 52356 
To making one new blue heaven and set- 
ting 39 golden stars, thereins 2. 2 yeaa 
To arraying Solomon in all his glory . . 7.29 


Another had ideas on dress reform and 
one day turned up ina toga. The next day 
he did not appear, but on the following 
he did, clothed and, for the moment, in 
his right mind, and explained that the 
night before the toga had blown off and 
he had had complications with the stu- 
pid police, especially after he had called 
them imbecile; but Bunce, passing through 
Florence, had paid his fine. Still he spent 


[1883 } 





FLORENTINE DAYS VISITORS TO°\THE TRATTORIA 


the night in the cells of the Bargello, or 
some such place. He afterwards chose to 
array himself as an early Florentine, and 
so arrayed attended a tea party. He often 
adapted costumes he found in old pictures 
to his requirements. Another time his 
whole family moved from their lodgings 
outside the town, with all their belong- 
ings in wheelbarrows. The Dazio people 
demanded duty at the gate, and they left 
barrows and all and walked into the 
town with only the things they had on 
their backs. He is now internationally 
famous, and only lately I awarded hima 
grand prix at an international exhibition. 
AN ND there was Forepaugh, who had in- 

vented a great actress, and knew every- 
body and everything. But the only thing 
I ever found he really did know was the 
best cantina to go to for a glass of wine. 
And he could tell a good story, but I never 
remember him doing a stroke of work or 
even pretending to. We would go toa caffe, 
opposite the side of a palace, at midnight, 
buy hot rolls, borrow tumblers, then cross 
the street, knock at the little window in 
the palace wall, and for two soldi wine 
was handed out to us through the win- 
dow. This was the way the Florentine 
nobles sold their vintage. We went back 
to drink it and eat our rolls, while he 
spun yarns between drinks till dawn. And 
the stories he could tell! One day he was 
lunching with Olcott or Sinnett, the 
prophets of Madame Blavatski, and one 
or the other lived in Irving’s rooms on 
Bond Street. He and Forepaugh got talk- 
‘ing about astral bodies and mahatmas and 
esoteric things and he said: ‘You dont 
believe. Well, I'll show you. Hold on to 
the table.’’ “‘I held,’’ said Forepaugh.‘‘It 
rose up with all the things on it, us hang- 
ing on, sitting in our chairs, went out 
through the window with us sitting at it, 
sailed down the middle of Bond Street at 


113 


the height of the third-story windows, 
over the hansoms and four-wheelers and 
busses, round the lamp-post by Egyptian 
Hall, and back again over the cabs and 
busses, came in through the window, and 
we sat down with a bump. ‘Now,’ said 
he, ‘do you believe?’ ‘No,’ said Fore- 
paugh, ‘give me another drink’— But I 
held on like hell.’’ And there were musi- 
cians and opera singers that were to be. 
The one I loved best of all had a lisp. He 
was to be the great American tenor. When 
one day I asked what part he would sing 
in Faust, as he was to be in it, he retorted 
magnificently, ‘‘I am F-F-ausht!’’ But I 
cant write the lisp. Then there was the 
New Englander with a chateau in Prov- 
ence who engineered an encyclopedia, with 
a stutter, and he would meet you with, 
| Yoy-yes, 1t-1t-1t iss a-a-a-2) ten 
he would slowly spell ‘‘v—e-r—y f-i-n-e 
d-a—-y’’—and at last burst out, “‘You bet 
it’s a bully fine day!’’ And the man from 
Chicago, sent by a trust. He received one 
hundred dollars on the first of each month 
and on the second we had the best part of 
it inside us. But those feasts were given at 
Doni’s, not at the trattoria, and I, the out- 
sider, was seldom asked. I wasnt ‘‘a boy.”’ 
He was an artist. His trouble was to find 
a model for his young Sophocles, for no 
one was as beautiful as he, and he could 
not pose and work at the same time; “‘but 
get him half drunk and he could talk any 
language except Eyetalyan:’ Poor Donahue. 
[ee man loved best of all was the ama- 

teur, if he was rich. He could intro- 
duce “‘the boys’’, if he would, or he could 
be taught to appreciate them. Now, money 
was no object to us, but at times a neces- 
sity. Some things had to be paid for at 
once—stamps and cigarettes—all things 
sometime, and in those days art students 
were utterly honest. Bills might run on 
or run up, but I never heard of a man who 


[1883 ] 


114 


did not pay in the end. They were igno- 
rant of up-to-date methods of not paying 
and running away. Therefore, the rich 
were cultivated, not to say pursued, for 
they could pay, and so they were useful. 
There was scarcely a tea or a dinner, a 
ball or a picnic, in which ‘‘the boys’’ did 
not figure prominently, or try to. They 
even went to church and the Parson some- 
times and the Consul once dined with us. 
One reason I was never altogether liked 
was because I had come to Florence with 
a commission to make etchings. They, 
inspired three years before by Whistler 
when he was in Venice, were occasionally 
doing them. I had money; it worked out 
at fifty dollars a month. I meant it to last 
a year, after I got over. That is what I spent, 
and that fifty dollars included everything 
—tailway journeys to Siena, Pisa, and, 
finally, Venice. Some months I saved a 
lot. The others lived on the future and 
hope—and their friends. In the future, 
they would all become—and most are— 
known. There was the memory of Giotto 
behind them; before them the hope that 
a Roman cardinal or an American mil- 
lionaire would discover them, or rather 
they would discover him; and they went 
into all sorts of adventures with this in 
view. But the most popular, or rather the 
simplest, method, and the most success- 
ful, was to marry a rich girl; and for this 
all tried, and a few were chosen. But with 
my fifty dollars a month I was an outsider. 
I had certainty; they had faith in them- 
selves and the Florentine world trusted 
them. It was spring in Tuscany. 

was not alone in being disliked. There 
| was a man—English, of course, and we 
loathed the English—who got forty dol- 
lars from some idiot every time he made 
a sketch. Then there were the English 
traveling students with one thousand dol- 
lars a year. They would scarce condescend 


CHAPTER XI - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRYvIOR: 


to speak to us. And there was the first 
American student with fifteen hundred. 
We hated him worse than all. We were 
working for fame; these creatures had 
money to buy it—money to spend. But 
they would not spend it on us—or with 
us. I knew none that ever gave a dinner 
to us—or even stood a glass of vermouth 
or tamarindo, or a sigarro Toscano. Abroad 
now, every student of art hasa scholarship 
or a patron or is in an Academy. They live 
in their palaces, boarding houses, clubs, 
dine in tea rooms and are looked after by 
benevolent collections of millionaires, safe 
from the contamination of the foreigner. 
And now we have an Academy in Rome. 

uT the encouragement of art as now 

practised is a curse. No artist can be 
made by it and not a few painters and 
sculptors are ruined. The man who starts 
by winning a scholarship and a thousand 
dollars for three years has a far harder 
time to get on when his scholarship ends 
than he who has had to fight his way 
through every sort of difficulty for him- 
self. Even the French know this, and if it 
was not for sentimental, political and 
financial reasons, the Villa Medici would 
be closed to-morrow, though the French 
and Spanish students are very different 
from the American, and the French and 
Spanish Academies are government insti- 
tutions. Yet a few men have come through 
the American Academy without harm. 
Some have even made a name for them- 
selves on their return. Then, the decora- 
tive fad, the belief that any painter can 
make a decoration, had not been invented. 
There was the story of a commission given 
Duveneck—a Columbus—and he was al- 
ways going to do it. Now infant prodigies 
decorate schoolhouses for practice when 
not studying comics, while the only great 
decorator—save Whistler and Hunt—that 
America has produced, John La Farge, 


| 1883 } 





a. 








THE SKYSCRAPERS OF FLORENCE 1883 + PALACES IN THE OLD MARKET AND VASARI’S FISH 


MARKET TO RIGHT 


ETCHING 


THE PLATE IS REVERSED » FROM A WOOD ENGRAVING BY 


R. C. COLLINS + PRINTED IN THE CENTURY ;- TO ILLUSTRATE HOWELLS’ TUSCAN CITIES 








FLORENTINE DAYS - MY FIRST ETCHING AND THE DUSE 


could scarcely get a commission from the 
artless architects who mostly have stand- 
ardized their art in this land. 
OURNALISTs came to the trattoria 
1 and the papers at home and in Europe 
reeked with announcements of what “‘the 
boys’’ were going to do, and what I was 
doing. And over that there was a row, for 
though all wanted to do things and tried 
to, any one who did was an outsider. All 
day, each in his studio worked at a master- 
piece and gave receptions—at least they 
did—to show its progress. We had coffee 
and rolls twice a day and called it break- 
fast and lunch. Then we dined for about 
a franc and a half, if not invited out, and 
went round the corner to the Piazza Inde- 
pendenzia, and there in the Circo Nazio- 
nale we either saw the Duse, then the wife 
of the Manager Rossi, play for twenty-five 
centessimi—I only saw her that winter, 
for I hate the theater—or we introduced 
special stunts for the American clown. 
Both had turns, but the audience, or our 
part of it, enjoyed the clown more than the 
Duse. For months this went on. Rolshoven 
painted a picture; Forepaugh told stories; 
Boécklin blew soap bubbles; Grover col- 
lected rings; and I made my etchings. Some 
of them are, I know, good, and even the 
world has said so. They were all done out 
of doors. The first was the Ponte Vecchio 
and I shall never forget the fury of Still- 
man, the critic and correspondent, mad on 
photography, when he found me perched 
on the parapet of the Lung Arno, and 
offered to photograph the subject for me 
so that I could do it more exactly, and I 
spurned his offer. He was a pupil of Rus- 
kin and Norton, and started as a farmer. 
I was so pleased with some of my prints 
pulled on the old wooden press in an old 
shop behind the Uffizi that I sent them to 
Ruskin, who kept or destroyed them and 
never answered my gushing letter; be- 


Lag 


sides, he was then too much interested in 
Miss Alexander, and her stories and draw- 
ings of Florence, to bother about me. 
Other proofs I sent Hamerton, who did 
answer and return them, saying he did 
not accept things from artists, but he gave 
me a commission—some Venetian draw- 
ings—instead, for THe Portro.io and re- 
mained, with intervals, my friend till his 
death some years after. 
lee in the winter, there were masked 
balls, to one of which I actually went 
with the Howells—the first and last time 
in my life—and was bored to death. I 
cant help it, Iam made that way. And I 
used to go to the gallerieswith Tue Lirrte 
GirLAMONG THE OLD Masters, and How- 
ells wanted me to take Johnny to Rome, but 
I did not. Inthe spring came the Carnival— 
and then Easter—the Carro del Scoppio, and 
the function of smashing the top hats of 
the English, and other functions, and 
flowers in and out of the City of Flowers, 
Firenze. People from home would turn 
up, to whom the Consul gave lunches, to 
which I was asked. Afterwards he would 
take the men to his club and send me off 
to show the old town to the women. 
Then Florence was old; all beyond the 
Via Tornabuoni, and seemed perfect to 
me, though much had gone. The streets 
were alleys lined with open shops of 
craftsmen up to the Mercato Vecchio. 
The Piazza was a dust heap; on one side 
Vasari’s unfinished fish market, on the 
other the skyscrapers of the Medici, and 
the Buonaparti, piling up stories high. I 
etched them long before there were any 
in New York. Under them were dark pas- 
sages, with holes, to drop molten lead on 
your enemy’s head as he went to the 
Duomo, the dome of which, with the 
Campanile, soared and composed beauti- 
fully over a tangled mass of low roofs 
before it—the etching of that was de- 


[1883 ] 


ies) CHAPTER XI- THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


stroyed, and the prints too. On the other 
side was a gossip-crowded fountain. Near 
by, the new market with the new straw 
hats and the Medici arms, pawnbrokers’ 
balls, hanging out. Tiny black alleys, a 
few of which still remain, led to the Arno; 
in one of them, John of Bologna’s Devil 
was fixed forever, the Florentines be- 
lieved, to the wall, though I have heard it 
has been frequently stolen and replaced 
by copies, each probably acquired by 
American collectors as the original. The 
streets were nearly all as narrow as those 
of Venice and a loaded donkey would 
block them, while a party of British or 
German tourists guided through them 
made a sensation. We worked on our plates 
and finally there was an exhibition by 
‘the boys’’, but Bradley, the English 
etcher, and I were rejected. Already, Amer- 
ican art was the only art that existed for 
Americans, and the only Americans were 
‘“Duveneck’s boys.’ 
ree waited for the spring and 
roses to go to Pisa, Lucca and Pistoia. 
Before we started, I grounded some plates 
in my big room in Florence. The alcohol 
for heating them was used up and I took 
turpentine instead, and the fire depart- 
ment of Florence was almost called out 
with its one engine and solemn members 
who walked to fires led by a bugler. Later 
the spring nights were full of beauty and 
mystery, as they still are. But no longer 
are the sick brought from the dark alleys 
by the shrouded white or black Miseri- 
cordia brothers, awfully picturesque, and 
carried in horrid closed litters, the way 
lit by flaring torches, to the hospital, 
though the brothers still do their good 
work at the solemn call of the bell. No 
longer do the bel’ giovanni march the 
streets, humming like a great mandolin, 
one singing the words, in the summer 
nights. Therewere days, too, of excursions, 


always on foot. I remember a wonderful 
one with Arthur Lemon from Ponte a 
Mensola to Vincigliata, then along the 
hilltop to Fiesole. How often have I done 
it since? There were no trolleys to Fiesole, 
only an occasional omnibus, always full. 
Another wonderful walk was outside the 
Porta Romana with the Stillmans—not 
one of us was under six feet—an immense 
success. I also did an article with Still- 


man, on the Villa Boccaccio, the draw- - 


ings made from his photographs, but I 
wrote him a letter later, about what I be- 
lieved was his criticism of my etchings, 
printed in Tue Natron for which he 
wrote till N.N.—Mrs. Pennell—succeeded 
him, and the article never appeared. I 
wonder what THe Century did with 
it? And there was a boating trip to 
Signa which ended in the shipwreck of 
William Sharp, owing to his being too 
heavy to let the boat get over the shal- 
lows. I went off to the little cities with 
Howells and when we came back the 
others were leaving for Venice. As each 
went, promising to pay his debt at the 
trattoria—and Iam sure they did—Didi 
wept and embraced him, and finally my 
turn came and I wept too. She didnotweep 
so much over me, for I paid my bill and 
gave her a souvenir. Once, a year after, I 
came back alone. Didi was changed; the 
mother was dead; the place was full of 
contadini, the dinner was worse; I got 
no embrace. I’ve never been back since. 
But it is good to remember. 
Gees were about a dozen etchings 
done in Florence and the surrounding 
towns of Tuscany. Wood engravings of 
them were printed in Tae Century with 
Howells’ articles and shown in many ex- 
hibitions. On the strength of them I was 
made a Fellow of the Royal Society of 
Painter Etchers, and taken, like Whistler 
in his early days, quite seriously in Eng- 


{| 1883 | 








meOceN TINE DAYS: THE PLATES DESTROYED 11g 


land. The Keppels published them in New 
York, and then, before I came to Europe 
again, I smashed the plates. I had a com- 
plete set of the prints, but they went in 
the War, and now I do not know where I 
could find one. No catalogue was made. I 
alone remember all the plates which few 
then wanted. Now that more want them, 
they cannot be had. As Drake used to say, 
“All the history I make in the Magazine 
is vanishing.’ To preserve it is one reason 
why I have written this book. But who 


can save the art, the literature, the archi- 
tecture of our country, whichis daily being 
wiped out? Italy is going, too, all old 
Florence and Rome are gone, Venice went 
in the War—for the people everywhere 
hate art, unless, as in Europe, they fear 
it. Here, from the architect to the hod- 
carrier, the clay-worker to the sculptor, 
the commercial artist to the painter, the 
photographer to the comics man, they 
destroy it for their own profit. They are 
amongst the vandals who have ousted us. 








2.0.6 OLLINS 


a ie See 


| 





*THE HARBOR AT LEGHORN - WOOD ENGRAVING FROM THE ETCHING BY R. C. COLLINS > PRINTED 
IN THE CENTURY - THE MARVELOUS FIDELITY OF THESE WOOD ENGRAVINGS WAS AMAZING 


{ 1883 | 


CHAPTER XII: SIENA AND SOME OTHER TOWNS: AN 
ADVENTURE IN SIENA - TUSCAN CITIES - LITTLE JOURNEYS 











































































































be OG 
ny a 


Uy, 
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Str, 
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Sy Pav 


























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Loy 


Le Darl 


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San ‘i i ee 





PISA FROM THE LUCCA ROAD +: FROM A PEN DRAWING NOW IN THE UFFIZI GALLERY FLORENCE 


OWELLS first scheme was to in- 

clude all Tuscany in his articles, 

but this was not carried out. 

Twenty years after I did the 
country with Maurice Hewlett. Howells 
finally went only to the towns near Flor- 
ence. In the middle of the winter, the 
whole Howells family emigrated to Siena, 
to the Pensione Tognazzi, and he soon sent 
for me. They took an apartment in the 
huge Salustio Bandini palace, which he, 
Howells, rented from a priest. I lived in 
the garret with an ancient caretaker. We 
dined in the pensione in the palace, but 
took no active part in its social life, 
though endless teas were given, to which 
the givers endeavored to entice Howells 
and even me. But it was cold. When I came 


I found him in the room in which he wrote 
with a fire—an awful luxury—his hat and 
Overcoat on, and a mattress on each side 
to keep off the draughts. But in front, the 
sun without warmth streamed through 
the windows, below which stretched gar- 
dens to the distant walls; then Osservanza 
on its hill, and the blue mountains be- 
yond. I had the same perfect outlook from 
an unwarmed garret. I dont know what 
he wrote about Siena. I did my plates— 
there is one I think really good—the great 
arch of the unfinished cathedral towering 
over the town. A steep street runs down 
to the house of St. Catherine and then 
climbs the opposite hill. As a study of 
perspective, it is extraordinary, and I re-- 
member to this day how I fought that per- 


[1883 } 








Sages OP) eel” 


eee, 


THE STREET RUNS DOWN TO THE HOUSE OF SAINT CATHE- 


RINE AND THEN CLIMBS UP TO THE GREAT ARCH OF THE UNFINISHED CATHEDRAL 


FROM THE UNSIGNED WOOD ENGRAVING IN THE CENTURY MAGAZINE 


. 





UP AND DOWN IN SIENA 


ETCHING 











bi 





— 





SIENA AND SOME OTHER TOWNS : IN TUSCANY 128 


spective out and got it right, with numbed 
fingers, in the bitter cold—I cried over it 
—but it was all in a day’s work, which 
was to get the subject on the plate, and I 
did. Set up with that success, I started 
another—the great archway, beyond which 
a mountainous alley climbs down to the 
Piazza, and over this the Mangia soars. I 
sat there in the cold, though I did not 
notice it, all the morning. I lunched at 
the pensione, where I paid, I think, four 
francs a day, vino santo, which Tognazzi 
himself brought round, included. And 
when midday rang out from the Campa- 
nile and the other towers, and I tried to 
get up, I could not; my legs were stiff. I 
could only yell, and I did when I moved. 
I could not explain any more than I could 
move, for I did not know the Italian word 
for what I did not know was the matter 
with me. Finally, some one saw some- 
thing was wrong, so a cab was sent for. 
Now, I believe there was only one cab at 
that period in Siena, and it was usually 
at the far-away station. It came at last; I 
was lifted, yelling, into it, along with 
my traps, lifted out at Tognazzi’s, and 
carried, yelling, to my garret. Mrs. How- 
ells suggested a doctor. He was brought 
in a hurry, prescribed things; but the old 
cameriera did things. She undressed me, 
only the upper half of me would work, 
put me to bed, covered me all over with 
mustard plasters and then built a wall of 
hot bricks around me as I yelled; but she 
cuted me. The plate was never finished, 
nor have I ever had rheumatism like that 
again. There are some other plates and a 
number of drawings, but Siena is a very 
difficult place to illustrate; it wont com- 
pose somehow; the sky line is not right. 
There are things I have since done, high 
views, looking down on the churches and 
the fountains. I did one plate of the Fonte 
Branda, awfully printed, in Florence; it 


is gone, all went, all my proofs, in the 
War. I could make something of it now. 
There were others of the earthquake arched 
streets of stairs and glimpses in the beauti- 
ful Fortezza. The art I ought to have appre- 
ciated in the Academy—or ought I2—the 
art of Siena still bores me, but I can spend 
hours in the Piccolomini Library with the 
Pinturicchios, though I havent been in 
the museum for years. There is a beautiful 
Madonna, too, ina church near the Piazza, 
but what interested me most—and Howells 
a little—was the life of the place: a man 
having an argument with his donkey, and 
finally picking it up, because it would not 
turn round, and setting it down faced the 
right way; the swells at the club opposite 
the caffe; the white oxen that blocked 
the way; the real Siena in spring and sum- 
mer, the feast of St. Catherine and the 
Palio; all these I saw later with E. and 
Helen and Leland, and later still with 
Hewlett, and again for James. 

HEN Howells and I went to Pisa, 

Lucca and Pistoia it was in a rush, 
such a rush that in Pisa we stopped at the 
Minerva, not only because it was at the sta- 
tion, but because Howells said he always 
stopped at the Minerva and there used to 
be a Minerva in every Italian town. Then 
we drove that idyllicroad to Lucca, looking 
back on fading Pisa and its towering mon- 
uments, looking forward to Lucca, show- 
ing over its walls, the young green of the 
old trees on its dark red bastions; and we 
walked round the place—we walked every- 
where—and he made notes and I made 
sketches. Thence to Pistoia, where I re- 
member we drove, too, Howells making 
suggestions for my work, to which I paid 
no attention. I remember too, that the 
women in Lucca wore hairpins made of 
gold wire, now no more, and I bought 
some; but when they reached Florence, 
nothing but gold wire was left. At Pistoia 


{ 1883 | 


124 


we went to a theater to see ‘‘Stentorello”’ 
and instead, we had seen so much during 
the day, we went fast asleep. Howells 
spent the time on the way back in the 
train writing up his notes, he virtuously 
did so every day, and when they were 
finished talked to a priest and missed the 
scenery. Ireturnedanddidthetownsalone, 
and made my etchings and drawings.’ 


CHAPTER XII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Howells was then at the height of his 
success and had little time to waste on me. 
Even then I thought Venettan Days far 
his best travel book, and I think so still. 
All this is vague memory of youth, for I 
made no notes. The etchings and draw- 
ings remain, in magazines, museums and 
collections. They are the only records left 
of all my work of that delightful time. 





THE PIAZZA PISTOIA WITH THE PALAZZO PUBLICO IN THE BACKGROUND * FROM A PROOF 
OF THE ORIGINAL ETCHING PRINTED IN THE CENTURY AS A WOOD ENGRAVING 


[1883 ] 








Pearle Rex ALITTLE JOURNEY WITH THREE 
LADIES - VIOLET PAGET: MARY ROBINSON: EVELYN PICKER- 
ING: FROM BEAUTIFUL FLORENCE TO DUCAL URBINO:-AND 
WHAT CAME OF IT - RETURN ue at CITY OF FLORENCE 





SKETCH FROM MEMORY IN A LETTER TO E - MISS ROBINS - 


HE Other articles I was to illustrate 

were written by Vernon Lee, to 

whom Howells introduced me. In 

her amazing house I met everyone 
—Russians, artists, authors, diplomats and 
Mary Robinson—all names and nothing 
more to me. One more blankly ignorant 
of all that life never existed. But Florence 
was a somewhat strange place—expatriated 
Scotch, English, Americans—some there to 
save, some because they liked it, some be- 
cause they hadto. What dont I remember? 
The good dinners of the banker who had 
a difference with his depositors; Ouida 
and her dogs, all in the carriage together, 
and how she hated Livingstone, who could 


we 


Cae, 


cua he 3 Beant oat SY 


q 
Saath a 
Ciné le 


WRITTEN FROM FLORENCE 1883 


drive eight horses tandem round two cor- 
ners without the police stopping him or 
his seeing where he was going, or what 
was coming; the pretty English girl who 
used to give soldi to the counts, when 
they left the front door of the club and 
followed her, and she called each one 
““poverino.’’ And the adventures of the 
tourists in Italian—those who were sure 
they could talk it—when overcharged ; 
the one from Kalamazoo who remarked 
to the cabman, “‘Si voi credevi qui vot 
putavi s’accommoda sopra una citadina 
Americana voi s’baglato.”’ And the other 
who had only one horse for a drive and 
was charged for two courses, ““due horse’’ 


{ 1883 | 


126 


being the purest Florentine for corse— 
she had stopped on the way. And in the 
early morning I would be waked by the 
Bersagliere, their cock feathers waving, 
headed by their buglers, trotting back to 
their barracks from their drill; and in the 
late evening the men who hummed like 
a great mandolin, while one sang as they 
walked the moonlit streets, lulled me to 
sleep in dear dead Florence. 
I T was arranged finally that Vernon Lee, 
Evelyn Pickering—she later married 
William De Morgan—and Mary Robin- 
son, who married Darmesteter—and then 
Duclaux—should go to Urbino to do an 
article on Raphael—it was to appear in 
connection with some Raphael celebra- 
tion—and that I should be their chaperon 
or knight or encumbrance. One May morn- 
ing we left Florence, second class, and 
wound up the Val d’Arno by Arezzo and 
Trasimeno to Perugia. Then no trolley or 
motor bus carried you to the swell hotel; 
I dont think the hotel existed. We stopped 
at a little inn, the Belle Arti, in a dark 
piazza, in the center of the city, for the 
ladies said they loved the life. Never shall 
I forget the first sight of the great plain 
from the great piazza, by the great gate 
of the city, far-away Assisi, where we 
would next stop, glowing in the sunset 
light high on its hillside. But as we looked, 
Miss Pickering fell ill, and she was sent 
back to Florence alone. That evening we 
three went on a search for the Baglioni, 
then and now only a name to me, up to 
the great piazza, where the Pope still 
blesses every one who passes, then down 
through the dark, vaulted streets till we 
came to the blank black wall of the Ba- 
glioni Palace. And as we stood there silent, 
from the mystery round us came an echo 
of the fight of long ago. Again and again 
with E. and Helen and alone I have stood 
before that grim wall in the darkness, but 


CHAPTER XIII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


never since has it given back the sound 
of battle, the wails of the wounded, the 
shouts of the victors. It was only a mur- 
mur but it was real. Frightened, without 
words, we came out of the blackness. For 
we had heard. 

EXT Morning we made our plans to 
N start. We hired a carriage with three 


horses, fine in feathers, and tinkling with - 


bells. The day was spent, after this, in 
galleries and churches. To me, then as 
now, the charm was in the city and its 
character, yet Vernon Lee said, and that 
was the end of it, ‘‘All Italian hill towns 
ate alike and all uninteresting save for 
their history.’’ That is the author’s point 
of view. We did the Peruginos in the 
Museum in the piazza, and the Raphaels 
in the convent outside the walls. In the 
evening we went again to the Baglioni 
Palace, but there was not a sound. Next 
morning we started for Assisi, down the 
long hill, across the plain by the Etruscan 
tombs, the Roman remains,to Santa Maria 
degli Angeli, and then up and up the 
mountain side to the home of the blessed 
Francis, Assisi mounting ever above us. 
At last we came to the gate of the city. 
No touts acclaimed us for their hotel. We 
rattled and jingled to the one albergo, 
and there we were the only guests, the 
whole town showing the way. The leg- 
end of the Blessed Francis was not yet 
known abroad and had not brought riches 
to Assisi. Since I have ridden that road 
more than once. The second time E. and 
I cycled it on our tandem when we rode 
and wrote our Two Pitcrms’ ProGress. 
That evening we dined on the terrace be- 
side the Church, as the long lines of light 
stretched across the plain, touching the 
Temple in the Valley of the Clitumnus 
with gold, turning the Tiber to silver and 
washing the mountains with blue shad- 
ows. And when, in the twilight, weasked 


{ 1883 } 
















+ By es i 
Sah apie Fy ey f 


eellitw # yeh 





1 


DUCAL URBINO STANDING ON ITS GREAT ARCHED FOUNDATIONS: FROM ETCHING MADE IN 1883, 








i 





A LITTLE JOURNEY TO URBINO - I RETURN TO FLORENCE 129 


the waiter about a map and our road, he 
confessed that he did not even know the 
way out of the town, any more than our 
driver, who explained it by saying that he 
was ‘‘a little bad in his eyes.’ Next morn- 
ing we saw thechapels inthe LowerChutch, 
and that blue Heaven with its gold stars 
is still before me; and the ladies raved over 
the Giottos in the Upper Church, the first 
I had seen and I did not understand them. 
Outside was onlyasadcity of ruin and pov- 
erty. But the driver had found our road. We 
started and we wound and wound ever up 
to Gubbio, and down again acrossa valley, 
and thencamea climb. Twooxen were add- 
ed and we mostly walked, and up and up we 
went till at last the high pass opened, and 
away above was Urbino, beyond another 
vine-filled valley, the city stretching from 
mountain to mountain, built on mighty 
arches. Our coming was known before we 
reached it, and a crowd awaited the Milors, 
and rooms and a dinner with little birds 
were ready. In the morning, the ladies 
looked up Raphael and I made an etching 
of the City from the valley. I have no idea 
what Raphael had to do with it, save that 
he wasbornthere. [think Idrewthehouse. 
But I do know that I have never seen such 
a bridge as that on which Urbino stands. 
At that date, though there were no new 
artists, in one way I was one, for I never 
went to see an old picture if I could make 
a new one; but I was a very young fool. 
H ERE Our triumphal progress ended. 

First of all there were complications 
with the drivers of the carriage and the 
oxen, which I, owing to their knowledge 
of the language, left to the ladies. But 
when we started, the landlord, thinking 
we were successors of Ruskin and ‘‘Milors 
Inglesi,’’ asked the price of his hotel for 
keeping us in it, the ladies collapsed and 
I settled matters by handing him a proper 
sum and saying “Questo o nienti.”’ I found 


then that sufficient ignorance of a lan- 
guage is a great advantage—in certain 
cases. Humbly, alone, without a crowd, 
we carried our things to the diligence and 
meekly took our places among the peas- 
ants and drummers who filled it. I was 
on top. Down we started, San Marino on 
its mountain to the left; below the great 
plain with Rimini in the midst of it and the 
sea beyond. Ina little while, through the 
streets of Rimini, weclattered to another 
dark, dreary palace, turned hotel, upstairs, 
asmost hotelsthen were. The ladies fell upon 
Malatesta and I fell to drawing, as I have 
tried again and again to do, the Roman 
bridges ; but I have never forgotten the maj- 
esty of the chapels or the sadness of the 
gtass-grown, silent, empty, palace-lined 
streets. We discovered, too, that our money 
had nearly run out. The ladies wanted 
to see the mosaics at Ravenna, then un- 
restored, and the Pinetta, then unburned, 
but there was not enough cash to take us 
all.So we drew lots—or they did—and the 
result was that I was sent straight back to 
Florence, third class,without a centessimo 
inmy pocket to stop in Bologna, or even to 
buy anything to eat or drink on the way, 
while they, having won my money, wrote 
me that they reveled in Ravenna. How- 
ever, I had my revenge, for I ate a good 
dinner in Florence and when, after a week 
they came back and I called, Iwas told that 
they were always in bed. They got out 
eventually, and so did the articles, and the 
curious may find them, Urbino in THe Mac- 
AZINE OF ART, and Rimini in THe ENGuIsH 
ItLustRATED. But though we all live, the 
magazines are no more. This was not my 
only journey with ladies alone; years later 
I traveled from one end to the other of 
Dalmatia with Miss Harriet Waters Pres- 
ton and her niece Miss Louise Dodge and 
the articles I did with Miss Preston were 
also printed in THz Century MAGAZINE. 


{ 1883 } 


CHAPTER XIV: THE HOME OF CRISTOFO COLOMBO 
A WALK IN TUSCANY - CORPUS CHRISTI IN BARGA AND A 
DINNER WITH THE CITY OFFICIALS - BACK: TO FLORENCE 





THE DEVIL’S BRIDGE NEAR THE BAGNI DI LUCCA : FROM THE DRAWING IN THE UFFIZI GALLERY 


ATER in the spring I made a sec- 

ond little journey, this time alone 

and this time again, to illustrate 

an article written by Vernon Lee. 
I hired a carriage in Lucca—I could get 
no bicycle—and after a detour to see the 
Devil's Bridge, reached the Bagni in the 
evening and stopped in a little hotel by the 
river. Outside the nightingales sang, and, 
when they stopped, the river rippled on till 
morning. At sunrise, I started to walk to 
Barga and the towns round about. It was 
Corpus Christi, though I did not know it; 
the article by Vernon Lee had nothing to 
do with the festa. The road, which I have 
cycled and motored since over and over, 
moved up among the dark shadows of the 
chestnuts and then came out into the open 
country. Tired of tramping it, I climbed 
up to the first hill town I saw, wonderful 
from below with its campanile. Within 


{ 1883 | 


its narrow streets all was dismal, all was 
poverty and squalor; though not the filth 
the Italian makes when he gets to Amer- 
ica. But in America he becomes a differ- 
ent sort of Italian, and he no longer comes 
from Barga. It was a largish place and 
as it was a festa, every one was about. 
There was no inn, only the house with the 
bush above the door. There was wine, no 
Chianti, though this is almost its country. 
There was no meat, though many goats; 
no eggs, though plenty of chickens ; noth- 
ing but stale black bread, ancient cheese 
and sour wine. But after a five-mile walk 
at sunrise and no breakfast, anything is 
good. What do these people eat, or do 
they, as I have been told, learn to live 
without eating? So we will have to live, 
because it costs too much to dine, and 
under prohibition we cant dine decently. 
But most new Americans have never dined 





: 

















BARGA AND ITS CATHEDRAL FROM THE CHARCOAL DRAWING IN THE 





ee aa 





Ss 2 iis Boe 


UFFIZI GALLERY FLORENCE 


1) 








THE HOME OF CRISTOFO COLOMBO : THE MAYOR’S BANQUET 


or done anything decently. These hill 
people were grim and silent. The inn re- 
minded me of the English country “‘pubs,”’ 
the most miserable in the world, till now 
that America has gone dry, with only 
cereals, cold storage, chewing gum and 
candy to live on, the new American “‘eats’’ 
—the new American word. I got away as 
soon as possible. The people were honestly 
poor, for they scarcely charged me any- 
thing, and offered last year’s chestnuts and 
showed me a cut across the high hills to the 
main road to Barga; and some went with 
me, till I could see the highway glittering 
in the light below. As far as I could make 
out, all the talk was of America, and that 
they wanted to gothere; but we had no 
prohibition then, though [ hear the Ital- 
ians have all the wine they want in this 
dry desert to-day. Once back on the high 
road, I found it filled with the gayest, 
brightest crowd; and, at last, we wound 
up into the town of Barga, crowded with 
people. Mass had begun in the cathedral 
at the top of the great flight of steps, and 
before long a procession came out of the 
church to the peals of the bells and music 
of the band. First came small girls, carry- 
ing great baskets of roses, and as they 
walked they strewed the streets deep with 
them, and from the crowded windows and 
balconies above, draped with hangings, 
more roseswere showered down. Thencame 
the city authorities—the Mayor gorgeous 
in sash and top hat, then priests, acolytes, 
and last the Bishop, carrying under a can- 
opy the Host, and finally all the confrater- 
nities of the country round, moving over 
the bed of roses. As the Mayor went by, 
he eyed me closely. I supposed I had done 
something, though I knelt with the rest 
as the Holy Thing passed. While the pro- 
cession wound round the town, I waited 
on the great terrace strewn with roses, in 
the glittering air. As I rested, every little 


5 


while crashes of bells surged from the 
tower of the cathedral and when they 
ceased, one after the other, all round the 
valleyand up the encircling church-crowned 
hills, the pealing jangling was taken up 
by church after church, dying away in 
the far distance, then coming back nearer 
and nearer, till the cathedral bells alone 
crashed out again. Soon the procession re- 
turned, for the route was short, and soon 
the Mass was over. Then straight to me 
came the Mayor. ‘You 'Merican, you?”’ 
“Yes.’’ “‘You know Five Pointa, New 
Vorka? Yes aay ese Mei sclisnim 
Cristofo Colombo; me—rich man me. 
Come dinner, you2?’’ I came. Under his 
own vine and fig tree, on that perfect day, 
by the side of the church, we dined, look- 
ing down on his vineyard bought with 
Cristofo Colombos, and surrounded by 
the Common Council of the town, the ec- 
clesiastical dignitaries and distinguished 
guests from all about. And Cristofo Co- 
lombo, the hero and cause of it all, was 
not there. Every one, save the priests— 
and some of them, too—knew New York, 
Boston, New Orleans and San Francisco 
better than I—had tramped our land, each 
with his tray of plaster casts, and had 
sold them; and each one, when he had 
saved enough, came back and bought his 
little farm or vineyard and was going to 


~ live happily ever afterward. For I then 


learned that all the sellers of plaster casts 
come from about Barga. At first they did 
not quite trust me, for my local knowledge 
of Italian quarters in big cities in America 
and Europe was vague, but they had an- 
other test: ‘‘ ’Merican soldier here—want 
talk you.’’ A long-haired, white-bearded 
prophet sat at the table and I was solemnly 
introduced. His Italian even was not very 
fluent, only a few words, and he was deaf; 
but gradually his American all came back: 
‘“Me—interpretario, was in war.”’ ““What 


{ 1883 | 


1 34 


war?’ ‘‘’Merican War.’ ‘“What American 
war, the Revolution?’ ‘“Yes ; me know Win- 
field Scott, General United States Grant, 
General Sherman, Santa Anna—me inter- 
pretario for General Scott and Santa Anna, 
Mexico.’’ And here was a veteran of the 
Mexican War, without a pension, and not 
asking for a bonus; but evidently he had 
made something out of it, for he was one 
of the magnates of the town, and he went 
up still higher in official esteem when his 
American came gradually back to him. I 
was able, through the Mayor, to assure 
the company that his story, which they 
had apparently doubted, was straight; 
anyway he knew more of the Mexican 
War than I had ever heard. And then we 
dined in the shady pergola. 

HAT was the first real Italian dinner 

I had ever had—vermouth and pastic- 
cio and capretto arrosto con piselli and 
finnochio and dolci of zabione and sempre 
chianti. But why tell of it to a nation, a 
hundred millions of whom never had a 
decent dinner in their lives, and have de- 
stroyed by cold storage and prohibition 
what they had, and cant stand any one 
else living decently, and who, like the 
Senator from Georgia, ‘‘thank Gaud, we 
dont eat like Yu-rope-ens.’’ The dinner 
lasted till Vespers and then there was vino 
santo and cognac and strega and sigarre 
Toscane, and we sat on until dark, and 
the Angelus rang down from the cathedral 
and was taken up by one church after an- 
other low in the valleys, growing fainter, 





VOLTERRA DARK ON THE DISTANT MOUNTAINS ° 


CHAPTER XIV - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


and farther away by those high in the 
hills, till it died in the distance toward 
Volterra, black on the furthest mountain; 
then it came back, and a last loud burst 
from the cathedral bells closed the day. 
If there is anything anywhere more beau- 
tiful in this world than the Angelus on 
Corpus Christi at Barga, Ido not know it, 
and of beauty I know much—and have seen 
much. Then I had a little supper at the 
quiet but rather tired-out inn, and in the 
morning went to work, or tried to, for it 
was not easy to escape from the patrons of 
Cristofo Colombo; and to tell the truth, 
there was rather a similarity in their 
stories, and they apparently had no ad- 
ventures, and they had all prospered, and 
here they were, and they had little Cris- 
tofos—and—ecco! It was so genuine and 
they were so delighted with their success 
over there, but I had to work—at inter- 
vals. Luckily, there was a festa or market 
in a day or so, somewhere else, and by 
the time they came back, I had finished 
and walked down to the Bagni di Lucca. 
T HESE people had made their world,they 

thought, safe for themselves, and now 
someare killedand someruined by landand 
sea grabbers, D’Annunzio and his heroes, 
who dragged Italy into the War. Italy is 
finished, killed by the fools who made the 
War. Those I saw in Barga, thank God, 
mostly died before, and so escaped the 
ruin of the world—the wreck that has 
caught us all who are still alive. Even 
Mussolini cannot bring that world back. 


FROM A PEN SKETCH MADE AT BARGA 


{ 1883 | 





CHAPTER XV: SAN GIMIGNANO - A WINTER WALK 
TO THE TOWN OF SKYSCRAPERS AND SUMMER DAYS WITH- 
IN ITS WALLS ON REPEATED VISITS DURING MANY YEARS 


j \ vy) Vi vy 





SAN GIMIGNANO ON ITS MOUNTAIN TOP » PEN DRAWING : SKETCH FROM THE PASSING TRAIN 


HAD been staying for some time in 

Siena when an English schoolmaster, 

with whom afterwards I kept up a 

violent correspondence, which is lost, 
and whose name I have forgotten, though 
we both may be famous—or he, too may 
be—suggested that we go up to San Gi- 
mignano. Every one who travels between 
Pisa and Florence can see its towers on the 
high horizon from the train near Empoli for 
a moment, that is, if not playing bridge, 
reading Ruskin, asleep, or devouring Mau- 
rice Hewlett; or if the Italians in the car- 
riage have not drawn all the curtains, for 
all Italians hate scenery as much as Amer- 
icans, who usually travel through it at 
night. Every one goes to San Gimignano 
now from Siena—it is the thing to do—or 
they motor out from Florence. But 1n 1883 
very few people went, because there was 
no train or diligence. The nameless school- 
master and I determined to go and he bid 
an affectionate farewell to the young lady 
to whom he was engaged, while I stuffed 


a knapsack with food and drink that Si- 
gnor Tognazzi had provided, and we took 
the afternoon omnibus train to Poggi- 
bonsi. I believe there was some faint at- 
tempt made to get us to take a carriage, 
but no attempt to reduce the price of the 
hire of it, and while bargaining, the post 
cart went off and left us, or else it did not 
goatall. So we started in the dark, for the 
sun had set, to walk the five or ten kilo- 
meters up the hills. The road was said to be 
full of brigands, as all Italian roads were 
then, but I never saw a brigand till twenty 
years after; then he was on his trial in 
Lucca. We stumbled up the short way of 
the cross, a footpath, in the night and 
the cold wind, only to find the city gate 
shut. But we made such a racket that we 
waked the watchman, taking a nap be- 
tween his rounds of the town walls, dur- 
ing which he still informs the sleeping 
City that it is nine o’clock and a fine, or 
some other hour and other kind of night. 
I forget whether the schoolmaster spoke 


[1883 ] 


136 CHAPTER XV - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Italian, but we found out that there was 
an inn in the City Hall at the top of the 
great stairs in the great piazza. We groped 
our way through the black canyon of a 
street, through the inner gate and into 
the square, up the steps, and banged the 
door. It must have been half-past eight 
and every one was in bed to keep warm, 
for it was very cold; but they turned out, 
I remember, lit a fire and gave us soupand 
goats’ cheese and Chianti. We were happy 
and sat in the fireplace with the family. 
They led us to our beds with brass lamps, 
and in the great room, full of empty beds, 
we slept till we awoke—or I did—and it 
was pot black. I groped to the window 
and pulled open the inside shutters, to 
find there was no glass in it, and a bliz- 
zard going on outside and snow drifting 
through. The lamp,whenI shut them,would 
not burn, and there was no fireplace, so 
no fire in our room. Still, what did it 
matter? We dressed and had our coffee in 
the kitchen. Nothing mattered, save that 
I had lugged, as well as the food we did 
not eat, a lot of copper plates up the hill, 
and I went to work ona big one, looking 
down on the piazza and the people stand- 
ing in the snow on Sunday morning before 
Mass. After the snow stopped and the 
plate was finished—and it had some char- 
acter in it, though it never was printed; 
it was to be the title to the Italian etch- 
ings which were to be published in a set, 
but they never were; I sat out in the fields, 
for it got warmer, making other etchings. 
There are three made outside the town, 
and another within, at the city gate. I 
am always astonished how rightly I se- 
lected my subjects even in my early days. 
Again and again I have gone back and 
found that I did forty years ago just 
the subject I should select to-day, to say 
nothing of having suggested subjects to 
hundreds of people who have not an idea 


in their heads, and even when they steal 
mine, cannot do it decently. Only the 
other day I drew the very same gateway 
at San Gimignano over again. I do not 
know if it is really, as to point of view, a 
bit better, but I hope there is more feel- 
ing and there are less lines in 1t. 
OMEHOW, my memories of San Gimi- 
S gnano are mixed. I have been there so 
often, and with so many people, since. What 
became of the English schoolmaster after 
I opened the window on Sunday morning 
and let the snow in, I do not know. He 
just faded away, for he does not seem to 
have come back from seeing the Gozzolis, 
to which I, as usual in those days, refused 
to go, but he wrote me letters for a while. 
From the amount of work I did, I must 
have stayed on in the unglazed room a 
long time, feeding on goats’ cheese, for 
there are five or six plates, some of which 
appeared in THe Century, though I do 
not think Howells went up to the town, 
and some with a couple of articles by 
Vernon Lee in Tue Portrouio. In fact, it 
was she who made me go to San Gimi- 
gnano, and she later went up with me and 
some other forgotten people; but there 
were no adventures that time. Now, when- 
ever I am in Siena, I go up by road, for 
there are motor busses and a motor dili- 
gence. The landlords embrace me and the 
room where [slept is, I believe, a museum. 
Children guide you to the Benozzo Goz- 
zolis, and shy stones at you if you dont 
tip them, and demand franco boll ester1; 
and I think the Gozzolis, which I saw for 
the first time a few years ago, and I are 
the only things that have not changed. 
Now maybe I can, after years, appreciate 
them a little. Vernon Lee and Symonds 
and Pater understood them at once, only, 
like Ruskin, “‘they did not know what 
they were looking at when they saw it.”’ 
Nor do. their followers, Cook’s tourists 


{ 1883 } 


T 1 ee ee ee eee ee 








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ES rit 


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ef q 

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is *k fe 
bby 
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So eqns + 


SAN GIMIGNANO + THE INNER GATEWAY + FROM A PROOF - ETCHING MADE IN 





1883 


SAN GIMIGNANO - MEMORIES OF THE FIRST VISIT 


and young ladies from Bryn Mawr who 
rave over them in a chorus quoted from 
Berenson. Or did Berenson, or Bay Smith, 
write about them ? though I never could 
read what they have written. 

VEN one of the towers has come down; 

I believe the authorities tried to make 
a power house of another. That Italians 
respect their monuments, or care for art, 
is bosh; the modern Italian is as great a 
vandal almost as the modern American. 
With its beautiful towers, San Gimignano 
is still one of the most perfect hill towns 
of Italy and the inspiration of the sky- 
sctaper—which was first built not in New 
York, but in Florence and Genoa and San 
Gimignano. Finally, somehow, I—or I 
suppose we—went back to Siena. But I 
forget all about the return journey. It is 
very strange how all of a sudden my mem- 
ory of some details of my adventures on 














ey, 


these trips becomes a blank. I can up toa 
certain point, acertain happening, live the 
life againand thenacurtain falls—I forget. 
It is the same with drawing. The better an 
artist remembersa subject and can see it, not 
only in his mind but on paper or canvas, 
the better hecandoit. Thismemory method 
is the method of the Japanese and can be 
developed as Hokusai did till ninety. Ab- 
bey told me he never drew a pen line till 
he could see his whole design on the blank 
white paper—and I see it too, if at times 
ina glass darkly, I carry for a long while 
these adventures in my head before I write 
them,some haunt me, others will not come, 
though, as Mark Twain, in his “‘Voice 
from the Grave,”’ said, the truest happen- 
ings are those that never happened. But 
these adventures of mine are all true and 
real even if they are not like those of the 
greatest of all the adventurers, Cellini. 





SAN GIMIGNANO FROM THE FIELDS : ENGRAVED ON WOOD BY J. F. JUNGLING IN THE CENTURY 


[1883 | 


CHAPTER XVI: IN VENICE WITH BUNCE AND DUVE 
NECK AND THE BOYS: MY FIRST SPRING AND SUMMER IN 
THE CITY OF THE SEA: DUVENECK PAINTS A PORTRAIT -1 DO 
DRAWINGS - WE PLAY CRICKET:-AND THEY MAKE PICTURES 











ON A CANAL + COPY OF A PEN DRAWING BY D. MARTIN RICO : MADE BEFORE I WENT TO VENICE 


WENT in the spring to Venice with 

“the boys’’, and at that epoch even 

we could afford a gondola and a gon- 

dolier. He cost, I think it was, ninety 
lire a month—the boat was thrown in— 
so we clubbed together and hired him, 
and he was happy, sleeping when we did 
not want him, when awake doing any- 
thing we wanted done, or yelling to or at 
his friends and enemies. Now he is miser- 
able if he cannot do you out of that much 
a day. [illustrated two articles on Venice 
written by Julia Cartwright for Tue Port- 
FOLIO, and Duveneck, who was there and 
whom I then saw for the first time, liked 
me—which most people do not—he liked 
me till his death. I was in Cincinnati just 
before that and tried to see him; he was 
about to die and said I was to remember 
him as I had known him, not as he was 
then. When I finished the Venice drawings 


and etchings, Ishowed them to Duveneck, 
and he thought them good, for a wonder, 
and in that happy city I happily wandered 
day and night, only turning up, if in the 
neighborhood, noon and evening at the 
Panada, where we all dined—Duveneck, 
Jobbins, Bunce, and ‘‘the boys.’’ Dear 
old Bunce, painting sunsets at sunrise and 
moonlights on cloudy days from his bro- 
ken-backed “‘gandler’’, with, after forty 
years, about forty words of Italian, many 
of them naughty words. In those hot 
spring days, he would come into the 
close, shadowy Panada, his pockets bulg- 
ing, and order a plate, a knife and fork 
and a quinto di Verona, and from one 
pocket pull out a roast potato, and a roll 
or some polenta, from another cooked 
fegato or fish, and from another cherries 
or strawberries. And he always complained 
at the Panada of the plate or the knife or 


{ 1883 | 








REBUILDING THE CAMPANILE IQII - LITHOGRAPH DRAWN FROM NATURE: PUBLISHED BY THE 
VENICE EXHIBITION AS A POSTER TO ANNOUNCE THE OPENING OF THE BIENNIAL IN I9I2 








Pi 
, 





IN VENICE WITH BUNCE AND DUVENECK AND THE BOYS 


the glass. We all used to clean them our- 
selves with our napkins and so into the 
habit did we get that once, later, when 
Duveneck came to London and stayed 
with us, and he went to dine with a 
duchess, he solemnly 
took up his knives 
and forks and spoons 
and wiped them on 
his napkin, breathed 
in his glasses and 
wiped them, and was 
going on with his 
plate when he no- 
ticed that the whole 
table was paralyzed; 
but he went on calm- 
ly, though if he had 
notexplained,proba- 
bly the butler would 
have been sacked. I 
do not think he was 
asked again. One 
evening Bunce hada 
spree of his own and 
ordered a bestecca. 
When it came it was 
overdone, so he or- 
dered another. It was 
toorare; hesent forathird. He wascharged 
for three. But after the affair was settled, 
he was never allowed to enter the Panada. 
His painting was as interesting as his per- 
sonality,andhewas, without others know- 
ing it, always doing good to some one in 
need of it. When Bunce had lunched and 
paid for his plate and wine, he went to 
Florian’s, and finding a shady seat, read 
Tue Times till it got cool enough to work. 
I WENT once with Bunce and some people 

to Padua, and as it was cold, he put on 
a lot of clothes and when, after the lovely 
voyage up the villa-lined Brenta, we 
reached the city, the people we were with 
hoped I would not insult the Giottos in 


FRANK DUVENECK -; 
PAINTING BY J. ROLSHOVEN : THE PORTRAIT 
GALLERY NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN 





143 


the Arena by giving my opinion of them. 
So I found my way about alone and bought 
nigger babies for luck at the shrine of St. 
Anthony, and looked at the Donatello 
and into the market, and then on to the 
Arena by myself, to 
really see the paint- 
ings and not be both- 
ered; and loafed at 
the big University 
Caife till the. rest 
turned up, filled with 
Giotto they had im- 
bibed from books but 
empty, all the same, 
forthey had only had 
time for rolls and 
coffee instead of their 
dear American break- 
fast before leaving 
Venice. Then we went 
to a nearby restau- 
rant and Bunce pro- 
ceeded to get rid of 
his clothes,and Idont 
know how many 
coats and sweaters 
he shed before he 
came down to his 
ordinary costume. It was almost like 
Charles Keene who, when asked to stay a 
week at a country house, took no bag but 
wore seven shirts, one of which he took off 
each day, borrowing a grip to bring them 
home in—and both were artists. One day 
a pretty girl, brought by her family, came 
to be painted by Duveneck, and first they 
gave him a dinner at Florian’s. And the 
next day the young lady began to sit; 
Duveneck had mixed up his sauce with 
bitumen and asphaltum all ready, and he 
went at her head and worked like fury, 
and when she got too tired to pose, as it 
was neat mezzo giorno, they all walked 
round to the Calcino, which was near his 


FROM THE DIPLOMA 


{ 1883 | 


144 


studio, for lunch, and when they came 
back, the upper part of the young lady’s 
head had run down to the end of her nose 
likeaveil,only it wasnotlikea veil butlike 
one of those exaggerating mirrors that used 
to stand in shopwin- 
dowstomakefatmen 
thin and long females 
short;butitwasfunny. 
Ke we kept the 

Fourth of July as 
good Americans and 
hadaball game. There 
was a student—a 
Harvard man sent to 
study painting, ow- 
ing to Duvenecks suc- 
cessin Boston, hisone 
success outside his 
teaching, until I got 
him a special medal 
at San Francisco. This 
student had a talent 
for sleeping so great 
that no sooner did he 
sitdownwitha brush 
in his hand than he 
slept, and Duveneck 
would push him off 
hischairand workon 
his study, and then the Harvard man would 
wake up and sign it and send it home. But 
he could pitch curves; he had been on the 
Nine. And, on the Fourth, we were to 
play the British painters who were there, 
and the Harvard man set up three wickets 
on a line between the creases and made 
curves round them. But there was a doubt- 
ing Britisher and he did not believe what 
he saw, so the Harvard man told him he 
would send him three balls he could not 
hit with a cricket bat, and he would bet 
him a dinner for the two teams that he 
would not. And the Briton asked for a 
high ball and it came low and then rose 





rl “ft 





Ww. GEDNEY BUNCE: FROM A PEN DRAWING 
BY WALTER SHIRLAW DONEAT THE TILECLUB 


CHAPTER XVI - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


over his head; and then for a low one and 
it came high till it reached him and 
dropped, and he missed that; and last for 
a medium one and it came to one side and 
then curved and took him in the tummy. 
Then he gaveup and 
we adjourned to Ja- 
camuzzi’s and later, 
at the Englishman’s 
expense, to the Little 
Horses and dined 
onscampi,vino bian- 
co and grasso del 
monte. Speaking of 
dining in Venice re- 
minds me that after 
the great dinner at 
the opening of one of 
the Biennial Exhibi- 
tions at the Fenice, 
yeats later when I 
was an official, Tito 
had just come back 
from Pittsburgh, 
where he thought he 
had learned to make 
cocktails.So he gota 
salad bowlatthesame 
Jacamuzzi’s,and filled 
it with vermouth and 
tamarindo and wine and brandyand gave it 
to Zorn and Stuck and the rest of us, and 
we were then carried round the Piazza by 
admirers, and the horses came down from 
St. Mark’sand danced with the bell ringers 
from the clock tower all around the place 
and the campanile bowed to us as we went 
home to bed. It was an immenso successo, 

almost as great as when the American 
sailors, to protect their officers, cleaned 
up the piazza and were all locked up for 
it. The British fleet which had bombarded 
Alexandria came to Venice that summer 
and painted the town red one night and 
were turned out the next morning, though 


[1883 } 





IN VENICE WITH BUNCE AND DUVENECK AND THE BOYS 


inthemeantime I saw almost Midshipman 
Easy’s sight, ‘three British admirals drunk 
in a wheelbarrow’ ’— only it was a gon- 
dola. And we would go on expeditions to 
Burano and Torcello and threaten never to 
come back, so fascinating were the sirens 
of those islands, and some did not fora 
while; and to the Lido to swim—the 
Venetians went there to see the only live 
horse in the city, which was a mule and 
drew a street car. And we worked too. 
I made some etchings then and the fol- 
lowing year, but the superior Goulding 
could not print them, or did not like them, 
and I did not etch again for years. So much 
did he discourage me, that, when I recom- 
menced, I did my own printing and have 
done so to this day. All artists who really 
etch pull their own proofs, for the printing 


ue 





SHEE eb 


MORNING ON THE RIVA SCHIAVONI - 


Pane 


Sr Be Rowe 


145 


of a plate is as vital to its success as draw- 
ing or biting it. But most etchers are not 
artists and their plates prove it, for if any 
method proves an artist’s powers of obser- 
vation, selection, drawing, it is etching. 
To-day also many painters, thinking to add 
to their incomes, manufacture etchings, and 
endless students, hoping to make a fortune 
quick, turn them out. Save in my class at 
the Art Students’ League, they are not 
taught to print, most know nothing about 
printing, and give their plates to profes- 
sional printers, who often know nothing 
of art, because, they say, they have no time 
to print, really because they cannot. But all 
great etchers have been great printers and 
had time to print and can print better than 
any mere printer. I stayed on till mid-July 
and then I started back north for Scotland. 


oy 


Sloe -ns0r of Vom ae Pipe RS te a ta cae pnt a 


oe ee a LPS fn 


zee eh 








ae joe 
( ee a “| 
Se rs vA ene | 


SKETCH IN A LETTER FROM VENICE TO E + MISS ROBINS 


Bie | 


{ 1883 } 





SIR EDMUND GOSSE - FROM THE PORTRAIT BY J. S. SARGENT + OWNED BY SIR EDMUND GOSSE 


CHAPTER XVII? BACK TO LONDON AND ON TO EDIN 
BURGH = TALES OF TWO CITIES AND OF TWO AUTHORS 
























































stopPeDin Londonand called at once 

on Edmund Gosse, who was repre- 

senting THe CeNtTuryY in Europe. [had 

a letter to him from Gilder, whom at 
that time I had scarce seen at THE CEN- 
tury office; and when I did see him he 
seemed always occupied with something 
besides me. I found Gosse in the old Board 
of Trade Buildings, a little space off White- 
hall, with a little statue of James II in it, 
behind the Banqueting Hall; or rather on 
the buildings, for his room was on the 
roof, with a little terrace, and when I 
called he was having his lunch and read- 
ing a foreign paper. He was translator to 
the Board of Trade and had to read foreign 
papers. He did not ask me to share his 
























































































































































































































































































































































































































































LONDON IN 1883 * ST. JAMES’S PALACE » WASH DRAWING ENGRAVED BY C.STATE ON WOOD 


lunch or order another for me, and I had 
no thought then of the endless Sunday- 
evening suppers in good company I should 
have with him and his family in later 
years, or the good lunches with good talk 
he would invite me to at his club or at 
the House of Lords, or the endless fights 
we should indulge in, for which I never 
could see any reason; but they all ended 
happily and we are at peace, and later too 
I have dined with him in Venice, where 
one summer day I found him wandering 
in the calli, for no intelligent person takes 
a gondola when he can walk in Venice. 
And he carried me off to a theater to see 
Goldoni and I went fast asleep, as I usu- 
ally do in a theater unless I find the seri- 


[1883 } 


148 


ous parts so amusing that I laugh and 
disgrace myself. And we would meet him 
in Paris where we stayed in the Hotel St. 
Romain, all sorts of English people turn- 
ing up in it—Colvin, Lady Ritchie, Ten- 
nyson, Fiona McLeod Sharp, and lots 
more, among them Gosse, even then be- 
ginning to be known in France. I remem- 
ber one afternoon an excursion to the 
Café de la Cascade in the Bois, and I 
think Beardsley and Bob Stevenson and 
Henry Harland went along, and there was 
pernod and little cakes. And a French 
peacock,who belonged to the place, strut- 
ted up and some one took a little cake and 
soaked it in the absinthe and gave it to 
the fowl who strutted off and flew up ina 
low tree, and began to wobble on the 
branch as the cake went down its long 
throat, and then, letting out a horrid 
scream, it fell over, hanging on to the 
branch with its claws and, suddenly 
spreading its tail, began to revolve like a 
pin wheel, screaming all the while, and a 
crowd gathered and the police came and 
the bird kept on screaming, and we left. 
I cannot recall that I wanted anything 
from Gosse as editor. But he wrote an 
article some years after on the Fitz-W11- 
liam Museum which I made drawings for, 
so he is not only among my friends but 
my authors. I never wasted much of my 
time or any one else's when I had work to 
do and I went on to see Andrew Lang that 
same day in London and lunched with 
him at the Oxford and Cambridge Club. 
I do not remember the lunch, but I do re- 
member that after it—as Lang was by 
way of being a sporting person—I ex- 
plained baseball to him. It was then a 
game, not a business for padded heroes 
and company promoters, to gull fool fans 
with. The real reason for lunching with 
Lang, between his morning with Theoc- 
ritus or Aucassin and his afternoon writ- 


CHAPTER XVII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


ing leaders for THz Dairy News, which 
were the delight of the town when they 
appeared—he even wrote one two years 
afterwards on us—was to talk over the 
article on Edinburgh for THz Century. 
So pleased was he with my baseball de- 
scription that he gave me, or thought he 
did, a letter of introduction to a friend in 
Edinburgh. But when I got back to the 
hotel, I found it was a private letter to 
this friend he had enclosed instead of the 
letter of introduction; in which he de- 
scribed my accent as wonderful as my 
description of baseball. Accent, indeed. If 
any one had a more perfect Oxford accent 
than Andrew Lang, with a bit of Scotch 
burr thrown in, I never heard it. And the 
squeaking scream in which he talked beat 
any Middle-West schoolma’am’s cackle. 
I sent the letter back to him, telling him 
I thought he had made a mistake, and I 
did not call on his friend. A year or two 
later, meeting him, he said he had com- 
pletely forgotten what I wrote him, but he 
had never forgiven me for writing it.When 
I told him it did not matter, he would 
not speak to me for another year. But 
he was most picturesque, and Sir ‘Billy’ 
Richmond's portrait of him is most like; 
in fact, so far as I know, it is the only 
decent thing Richmond, a superior per- 
son, ever did, but he ruined St. Paul’s, 
which reminds me that he painted Canon 
Barnett, and the painting was shown at 
Whitechapel—or was it Watts?—but no 
matter—merely a change of name, it was 
Watts really, and a Minor Canon, taking 
a crowd round the show one Sunday after- 
noon, explained the pictures to the poor 
people, ‘And here,”’ said he, ‘“is the por- 
trait of our great and good master Canon 
Barnett; and the good and great artist has 
not only painted his face, but his soul, as 
well.’’ And a voice from the people was 
heard, ‘“‘What a dirty black soul ’e do 


[1883 | 





ANDREW LANG + FROM THE PORTRAIT BY SIR W. B. RICHMOND »- OWNED BY THE FAMILY 





150 CHAPTER XVII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


‘ave.’’ Even Carlyle said the same thing 
of Watts’ painting of his shirt, remark- 
ing, ‘Mon, I’m in the hobbut of wurrin 
clean linnun’’ as he told Whistler. 

WENT down to Edinburgh and on the 
| way got an awful toothache—I remem- 
ber that distinctly—from rushing through 
too fast from hot Venice to damp London 
and cold Scotland; and I cured it by furious 
practice one night in a roller-skating rink, 
where I was in such fine form before the 
evening was over that I was offered 
‘‘twelve pun’’ a week, Scotch, I suppose, 
as instructor. I also learned a lot about 
smoke and mist and steam and rain from 
Edinburgh Old Town, and what I learned 
is in THe Century article, and other 
articles I illustrated later. The Edinburgh 
shopkeepers and wynd dwellers were not 
nice, and I had misunderstandings with 
them when I sat down to draw in front 
of their shops and castles and refused to 
be moved on. So I put “‘Shoemaker’’ on a 
sign over a lawyer's door and “‘Writer to 
the Signet’’ on a pawnbroker's shop, and 
the owners of the signs wrote furious let- 
ters to THe Century about me when the 
article was published. That often hap- 
pened and Drake always sent me the in- 
dignant letters—but I rarely got any of 
praise. But as one could work, and I did 
that summer, long after the place had gone 
to bed and long before it was up, for it 
was never really dark, I got through, not 
with the picturesque, really magnificent 
city which I have returned to again and 
again, but with my article. Nor did I finish 
with Lang, for after it came out, we were 
—or he was—teconciled and I did with 
him others on St. Andrews—a stupid 
place, the University, a fine ruin, the 
golf links, a bore—North Berwick, and 
other of his beloved haunts, which I never 
would have chosen for myself to draw. 
Still there always is something interest- 


ing everywhere, even in a Middle-West 
Main Street town, if you can escape the 
Babbitts and find it. I used often to see 
Lang at Gosse’s, but I think the last time 
was at a tea party at Abbey’s, which I 
somehow got mixed up in, and, having 
my teacup in one hand, my top hat in 
the other, and wanting to be shaken 
hands with by some one, possibly Lang, 
I dumped the tea in my top hat—not that 
I meant to. But after that I avoided tea 
parties, and have as much as possible, 
to this day, though my performance gave 
quite a delightful interlude to the solemn 
function that afternoon. 
| Pa Edinburgh I came down—up, as 
they say in Scotland—not only to York- 
shire but to cycling, and flew about, be- 
tween there and Coventry, with Colonel 
Pope—who was “‘six foot one way, four 
foot t’uder, and weighed three hunnerd 
pound’’, and had to be helped on to his 
high wheel—and a man on an American 
Star. I hada nickel-plated show machine 
Pope lent me. He built the Columbia tall 
wheels and was an early millionaire mo- 
nopolist protectionist. We were a howling 
success. At Coventry I bought a fearful 
contraption in the shape of a sociable tri- 
cycle and rode it to Liverpool, wrote an 
articleabout that in THz Century, From 
Coventry to Chester on Wheels,’’ shipped 
the tricycle to Philadelphia, and entered 
in a race with two other competitors as 
soon as I got home. There were three of 
us in the race and there were three prizes, 
but, as I was lapped once or twice, the 
judges refused mine, and that ended my 
cycle racing and my first trip to Europe. 
HEN I went abroad I was a coming 
\ man in Philadelphia; when, nine 
months later I came back, I was almost 
forgotten in the City of Brotherly Love. 
Now I have left Iam asked to return, but 
if I did, the same thing would happen. 


[1883 | 


oe eee SS Ee 


























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































MO IN 
OLD EDINBURGH - A WOOD ENGRAVING UNSIGNED OF A WASH DRAWING ILLUSTRATING 


LANG’S ARTICLE ON THE CITY PUBLISHED IN THE CENTURY -: DRAWN 1883 FROM NATURE 









































CHAPTER XVIII: OUR CYCLING JOURNEYS IN ENG 
LAND AND ITALY - ROME AND VEDDER -: VENICE AGAIN 
RETURN TO LONDON AND BEGIN ENGLISH CATHEDRALS 


VAN SQV 





THE WAY WE DID EUROPE WHEN E. AND I WERE YOUNG » DRAWING MADE IN FRANCE FOR 
OUR SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY WHICH WE ALSO RODE WROTE AND ILLUSTRATED IN 1885 


Lu the winter of 1883-1884 I ran 

round Philadelphia, trying to 

find my lost place in the town, 

but I have never found it, and 
that is why I, who loved the city more 
than any one else, finally left it. I was not 
at home in my own home—not wanted 
among my own people. I also became en- 
gaged, was married, and was given a com- 
mission to take us both to Europe. In the 
early summer of 1884 we started, and the 
Lelands, just before and for the same rea- 
son, BEE the mud and muck off their 
shoes and never returned. Only their 
ashes were sent back to the city, which 
ignored and forgot its great man who is 


known everywhere in Europe to-day. We 
stopped a while in London. Stephen Par- 
rish came over and joined us, and one day 
we lunched with Seymour Haden. Hop 
Smith was there, and Haden showed us 
his prints and told us how he came to etch 
‘The Breakingupofthe Agamemnon.’ “‘I 
was going to a dinner at Greenwich, by 
the penny steamboat,”’ hesaid,*‘and when 
we got there, I saw the subject. I was 
in my evening clothes but I pulled the 
Pee out of my tail coat pocket and drew 

’ “Hum,’’ said Smith, “‘and what size 
see do you carry in your ordinary coat 
pockets?’’ The plate is a foot long and 
weighs pounds. After this Parrish and I 


[1884 | 





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ANCIENT MEDIZVAL AND MODERN ROME: PEN DRAWING FROM NATURE: A REPRO- 


DUCTION OF THIS ILLUSTRATION WAS PRINTED IN MRS. 


S MAKERS OF ROME 


OLIPHANT 


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OUR CYCLING JOURNEYS IN ENGLAND AND ITALY 


left, and as we walked along Piccadilly, 
that Sunday afternoon the street was de- 
serted, we met the public billy goat of the 
quarter, and he did not like Parrish and 
went for him, but Parrish opened his um- 
brella in the goat's 
face, which so aston- 
ished the beast he 
made a flank move- 
ment into the open 
door of a club, and 
we went our way. 
The goats owned the 
City of Westminster 
then. I haveseenthem 
hold up busses while 
they ateanewspaper; 
they were the street 
cleaners and police 
too and I have seen 
the Archbishop of 
Canterbury fly for 
sanctuary from one 
intoWestminster Ab- 
bey. They are gone 
now. 

HAT summer we 

didourfirstbook, 
which we rode and 
wrote, A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE, and in 
the autumn started on another pilgrimage 
to Rome, which too became a book, and 
was also ridden and written— Two Pu- 
Grims’ Procress, though it first came out 
in THe Century. E. and I spent the winter 
in Rome. There we saw much of Vedder, 
whose illustrations toOmar were just pub- 
lished, and hewas having his first real suc- 
cess. One night when we were at Capo la 
Casa, and as he was tramping the floor, he 
said, ‘Im not Vedder—Im Omar Khay- 
yam.’ “‘Nope,’’ said one-armed Butler, 
“youre the great I am.’’ But he was a 
dear—if he always sighed over ‘“The 
Empty Buttonhole.’’ Vedder was also 


BY FRANK FOWLER 





ieee ae : Prat 


ELIHU VEDDER - COLORED CHALK DRAWING 


CENTURY ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK CITY 


i/. 


the greatest expatriated American I ever 
met. He reminds me of other things. 
Though E. has told all about him in 
Nicuts that no one reads, she has not 
told this. And by telling it I shall prob- 
ably harm myself, 
for the only time I 
did tellit, it did me 
harm. I have the 
power in a strange 
city of willingmyself 
to go where I want 
without the aid of a 
guide oramap.What 
I mean is to or from 
the center of an old 
city. The day we got 
to RomeonOvrItTat- 
IAN PILGRIMAGE I 
wanted to go to the 
PiazzadeSpagna. We 
came in at the Porta 
del Popolo. The stu- 
pid will say that ts 
easy, you go straight 
till you get toit. Idid 
not. I went up the 
Corso till I came to 
a street and, turning 
to the left, rode right into the Piazza— 
and into the arms of the police—but that 
is all described in the book. That evening, 
after dinner, we wanted, for some reason 
that I forget, to go to the Ghetto, which 
was close to the theater of Marcellus, on 
that side of the town. I went there at 
once. And then a curious thing happened 
as it often did. I lost the power and did not 
know how to get back. As in these old 
cities all streets lead to the center of the 
city or the most frequented place, if you 
follow the crowd you will get there. But 
this time on the way back I really was lost 
—there were no cars, not even any pave- 
ments then in Rome—and as we stumbled 


BELONGING TO THE 


[1885 } 


158 


along in the dark, we met two men, and I 
said in my not immaculate but useful Ital- 
ian, ‘‘Dove é il Piazza di Spagna?’’ One 
man stopped, the other went on muttering 
in English, ‘‘Let them find their own way’ 
—and I broke out,‘ You might have man- 
ners enough to keep your mouth shut.’ 
The next night I met the rude Briton at 
Vedder’s—it was Professor J. H. Middle- 
ton, Director of South Kensington—and 
author of Rome In THE MippieE AGEs. 
As to modern Rome, I dont think he knew 
much more of it than I did then. I also 
told him of the perfect pharmacyat Monte 
Oliveto, with its beautiful majolica. He 
only sneered, “‘our allies’’ have a nasty 
condescending way of showing their in- 
sularity sometimes. Now they pat us on 
the back, but they hate us just the 
same, and there is more reason for it. 
I lost this power by telling Podmore, 
the secretary of, at any rate the moving 
spirit in, the Psychical Society, that I pos- 
sessed it. He cross-questioned me, and 
wanted to have me come to a meeting 
and tell about it, and then go out and 


CHAPTER XVIII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


demonstrate it by taking the whole Soci- 
ety somewhere. I did neither—but from 
the time I told of it, it grew less, and now 
I never have the chance to need it. For 
editors now use photographs instead of 
art, and I take trolleys and trains instead 
of following my invisible guide to whom 
I resigned myself and who rarely failed 
me. That spring we were in Naples and 
Venice. We did other articles also; then 
we came back to London for a month, and 
stayed thirty years, and had it not been 
for the wreck of the world, would be 
there still. 
B ut first I started in on my drawings of 
St. Paul’s, and then of the other Eng- 
lish cathedrals, for we had been given that 
commission before we left New York, and 
Mrs. Van Rensselaer was to write the 
text. I had met her already and was 
deadly afraid of her, for she was an art 
critic. But I have written on art since and 
know critics ‘“‘too well,’’ as Tadema once 
said of me, when Gosse offered to intro- 
duce him, after I had criticized the great 
works of the great painter of those days. 





THE WEST GATE: PEN DRAWING FOR A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE * OUR FIRST BOOK 


{ 1885 } 





CHAPTER XIX! SHAW AND SOME OTHERS - LIFE IN 
LONDON -: LODGINGS IN BLOOMSBURY - BECOME AN ART 


CRITIC ON THE STAR - MOVE TO THE ADELPHI 


OUR 


PUBLISHERS - THE APARTMENT ON ADELPHI TERRACE 


f 





ot 


E. IN OUR LODGINGS IN BLOOMSBURY IN 1885 WHERE WE MADE OURSELVES QUITE AT HOME 
AMONG THE PRINTS ON THE WALL IS WHISTLER’S SARASATE WHICH WAS SHOWN ABOUT THIS 
TIME » PEN DRAWING FOR OUR SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY » LONGMANS GREEN AND COMPANY 


EORGE BERNARD SHAW was 
one of the first men I met in 
London in 1885. I forget how 
I encountered him—I think at 
William Morris’ so-called Socialist meet- 
ings at Kelmscott House, Hammersmith. 
In the summer we were in lodgings at 
36 Bedford Place—that perfect street of 
boarding houses, with statues at either 
end in their squares and the surgery with 


its red lamp on one side, the quiet street 
given over during the day to hurdy-gurdies, 
cress sellers and cat’s meat men, and Brit- 
ish working men who chanted that they 
‘* "ad no work to do-o-o,’’ and German 
bands, and the man who plaintively asked 
in song ‘‘who’ll buy my sweet lavender’ 
in between the tinkle, tinkle of the muffin 
man as they walked slowly up and down. 
In the evening the German clerks came 


{1885 | 


160 


home from studying British affairs in the 
City, and all day there was a continuous ar- 
rival and departure of tourists and provin- 
cials, taking and leaving lodgings, in four 
wheelers, followed by touts running be- 
hind to fight for the luggage, carry it up- 
stairs, and, if they did not steal it, fight the 
owners, while cabmen and servants looked 
on and bobbies looked away. Every house 
was alike inside and out, the same num- 
ber of chimney pots on the roofs, each 
had the same number of windows, all the 
same signs of apartmentsin them, thesame 
sort of Old Masters in the dark halls, the 
same drawing-room floors, and the same 
bed sitting rooms upstairs. Each emitted 
the same smell of gas and cooking when 
the same dirty-faced slavey opened the 
door and called the landlady, who was 
always the same sad person in widow's 
weeds. Only the lodgers were different. 
We had the real Duke of Marlborough, 
and a Spanish Conspirator, whose secre- 
tary ground a music box for him all day, 
and Ellen Terry would come to see some 
members of her very numerous family, 
with Gordon Craig and young Irving and 
others in a carriage, and then every one 
rushed to every window and stayed there 
as long as she was in the street. Anyway, 
Shaw, who lived near by, used to drop in 
and talk of his brilliant future and vow 
he would achieve it. He was then living 
his vegetarian way on a pound a week, 
and announcing he would become famous. 
He had just written CasHEL Byron's Pro- 
FEssion—the only book of his I have ever 
read, and that because he gave it to me, 
though once later I heard him read Can- 
pipa at H. W. Massingham’s, and that 
was enough for me. 

oon Tue Star, the London evening 
S paper, was started, ‘Tay Pay’’ as edi- 
tor, an English-Irish politician named T. P. 
O'Connor, with his rooms in the roof of 


CHAPTER XIX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


the newspaper building, and Shaw was 
the art critic. I suppose it was writing 
on art that gave him the idea that he was 
an authority on the subject, but to this 
day he dont know the difference between 
a photograph and a painting, though he 
prefers the photograph, and all his art 
notions are based on the photograph, as 
his art writings prove and his portrait of 
himself, by himself, shows. He did not 
keep to art criticism long—there was not 
enough advertisement in it for him, so he 
went in for music, calling himself Corno 
di Bassetto—for, as he said, he was going 
to blow his own horn until it was heard. 
I then became Artist Unknown and, over 
that name which I used, wrote my opin- 
ions. Shaw got me the post—I think I was 
the only artist he knew—but I succeeded 
in getting rather well known and in and 
out of endless scrapes, from a threatened 
libel action with the family of Marie Bash- 
kirtseff to a threatened thrashing by Walter 
Crane. Neither, however, came off. But 
I drew all the London Art World to the 
paper and dragged it into endless contro- 
versies. I wanted, like Shaw, to become 
famous, and I believed I could bring art to 
the people by what I said. It was an amus- 
ing staff on the paper under the later 
editorship of H. W. Massingham—the 
real editor. The nominal editor was al- 
most always in prison, mainly owing, I 
believe, to the views of his contributors. 
Among them were A. B. Walkley, who 
made such a noise in the theater that 
he was taken up by Tue Times; Arthur 
Symons, Richard Le Gallienne, who we 
always maintained was not sure of the sex 
of his own name, and Clement K. Shorter ; 
though far the most important person on 
the paper was Captain Coe, the sporting 
man. The paper was to elevate the masses, 
but Coe had no interest in anything save 
‘finals’ and they were what appealed to 


{ 1885 } 





GIVEN ME BY GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 


SS 


GEORGE BERNARD SHAW REGARDING THE BUST OF GEORGE BERNARD SHAW BY RODIN 


FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 








162 


the people, and for his articles they bought 
the paper, not to any extent for ours. 
A t that time if | was going to bring art 
to the people by my writing, so was 
Morris by his preaching, and we haunted 
the Hall at Hammersmith and sometimes 
went with the elect into Kelmscott House, 
where Shaw always was. Those were the 
days of demonstrations and the appear- 
ance of John Burns and Annie Besant and 
later Keir Hardie who were also going to 
raise or save the down-trodden, but by 
speeches and processions, especially talk 
—always talk in Hyde Park, on Tower 
Hill, or at the Fabian Society—and then 
by the big meeting in Trafalgar Square 
which ended ina riot, with Cunninghame 
Graham as the hero and the martyr, get- 
ting the troops out and having the Riot 
Act read. I saw it all from the windows 
of the old National Liberal Club. Shaw 
was coming to the meeting with a dele- 
gation from Bloomsbury, at the head of 
it naturally, but he said they walked too 
fast and he found himself at the tail. Then 
the first thing he knew there was a police 
charge, and the procession turned, he still 
at the tail, with the police gaining; but, 
said he, ‘‘I soon was at the head again and 
stayed there, for I ran home faster than 
any of the rest.’’ But he did come off, as 
he has let all the world know. There was 
nothing which would make him talked 
about he did not do, from getting hissed 
down in cycling meetings, getting laughed 
down when he tried to run a Borough 
Council, getting lost and announcing that 
he was lost, and finally he arrived on the 
staff of Tur SaturpDAy Review, and then 
into the theater and world-wide fame, if 
it is fame as he says it ts. 
HAW followed us to the Adelphi, for 
S we invented that Quarter, though we 
lived first in Buckingham Street, with 
Pepys and Humphry Davy in Etty’s studio. 


CHAPTER XIX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


But we made the Quarter in our time as 
others had in theirs, and Fisher Unwin 
came in and we moved to the Terrace, 
and were there joined by Galsworthy, 
Temple Thurston, and Barrie, and the chef 
of the Savoy—and what a crew. We did 
not exactly invent it, for Hardy and Black 
also had had chambers and rooms before 
us and Garrick a house before them. And 
there were publishers there too in those 
days. Fisher Unwin we knew from the 
beginning and we know still; and Heine- 
mann hovering round Whitehall Court; and 
Fred Macmillan—Sir Frederick—further 
off; and they loved authors and dining and 
life, and authors were people to be lived 
with and to go about with, and publishers 
came to the authors’ homes and were 
human and friends, not as here, where 
too often authors, artists and illustrators 
are but an unfortunate necessity to earn 
money out of, unless they are precocious 
freaks, to entertain the business-like pub- 
lishing shop-keepers, or be entertained by 
them. Rare indeed is the publisher in this 
country who is anything but a bore anda 
shop-keeper, enduring you to show his 
superiority, but in England publishers were, 
and a few still are, different. They liked 
you and knew you had made them; here 
they think they have made you. But scarce 
an American business man knows his busi- 
ness or his place, and is always trying to 
get into yours. In those days we would 
go to Paris and find Unwin in Lapérouse, 
or Heinemann at Voisin’s and they would 
follow me, because they were interested in 
what I was doing—not to spy on me and 
see how fast I was working, but strangely 
because they liked me—to the ends of the 
continent; or they would come to us in 
Buckingham Street and Adelphi Terrace, 
just as we went to them because we liked 
them, not because we and they made money 
out of each other. And they loved their 


{ 1885 | 











f 





BEDFORD PLACE BLOOMSBURY LONDON +: WE LODGED AT 36 WHICH IS ON THE RIGHT HAND 
SIDE - REALLY THE LEFT - THE PROOF REVERSED : FROM THE COLLECTION OF JOHN F. BRAUN 





SHAW AND SOME OTHERS - THE TEA TOWER 


work better than golf, and talking better 
than the radio, and a drink better than 
the movies. They were human and alive, 
not standardized and dead as in these 
United States—the dreariest, stupidest, 
stod giest, snobbiest place on earth, and if 
it was not the most picturesque, I would 
leave to-morrow. That is the only reason 
why I stay. But, from what I have seen 
and heard, the rest of the world, save that 
it is not dry, is just about as bad. And I 
must remember my very first publisher, 
Richmond Seeley, who, through Hamer- 
ton, gave me my first European commis- 
sion, the Venetian drawings, and took 
me out rowing on the Thames where, to 
his horror, I appeared ina top hat. But I 
hid it, as did some of THz Century people 
on their first visit to the Regatta at Henley. 

ur Adelphi Terrace windows looked 
O right into Shaw’s and we could see 
how he did his hair, and what he would 


165 


have for dinner, and there were awful rows 
between his German cook who, according 
to gossip in the Quarter, became Swiss 
during the War, and our French Augustine. 
Once E. wrote an article in THE ATLANTIC 
and there was something in it Shaw did 
not like, or rather the German cook did 
not like, and so she stuck the magazine, 
opened at the article, flat against her kit- 
chen window to let us know she had seen 
it. And another day, so we were told, 
Barrie, who then lived under us, wanted 
to show Shaw to some guests he had to 
lunch and he fired a roll from his dining 
table through the open window on to 
Shaw's table, and his guests saw Shaw 
and heard him, too, when he came to his 
window. But the finest things happened 
when the suffragettes who filled the build- 
ing got on our roof one day to protest. 
A ceremony to dedicate a bust of Wilfred 
Lawson was going on in the gardens be- 





THE TEA TOWER + MEZZOTINT : OVER WHICH SHAW AND I FOUGHT : THE FIRST OF THE SIGNS 


[1885 ] 


166 


low and the ladies, some real ones and the 
rest quaint, lit a fire of alcohol up there 
to heat hot air balloons, and I heard them 
and went up and smashed the balloons 
and put out their can of alcohol and then 
locked the door and sent for the police. 
And they never again went on the roof, 
where nobody was allowed to go because 
the lightest step across it sounded like 
thunder in our rooms underneath. But 
Shaw and I parted when he said he loved, 
and backed up, the electric tea sign on the 
shot tower across the river, which ruined 
the night, though I made it quite pictorial 
as my mezzotint proves. And I told Shaw 
in the papers where we talked, that I was 
glad to know what he really liked. That 
hurt—and for years I would only see him 
going out in his Jaegers to preach Social- 
ism from the tail end of his sixty-horse- 





WILLIAM HEINEMANN: FROM A PHOTOGRAPH 
THE PUBLISHER OF OUR LIFE OF WHISTLER 


CHAPTER XIX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 








J. BERTRAM LIPPINCOTT + BY JULIAN STORY 
AMERICAN PUBLISHER OF WHISTLER JOURNAL 


power Mercedes car. But he got over it 
and he was, with John Burns—who too 
knew all about everything—almost the 
last man I saw when I left London in the 
War. And now he has sent me his photo- 
graph of the bust by Rodin, and photo- 
graphed it himself. Shaw is not at all 
bad when he forgets to preen and prattle, 
only he rarely forgets. But, as he said in 
a recent letter to me, “I am mad about 
Prohibition now that I know you would 
prefer England wet to America dry. Scot- 
land is still wetter than England, in every 
sense’’—the letter was written from Aber- 
deen. Shaw can be really amusing when 
he dont try to be, when he dont pose, and 
is just Shaw, expatriated, transplanted 
Irishman. 

ROM 1885 we had our headquarters 
F in London and gradually got rooted 
there. In fact, our lease, taken over by Sir 
James M. Barrie, who ruined our beauti- 


{1885 | 








SHAW AND SOME OTHERS - SOME OF OUR PUBLISHERS 167 





et i. 


T. FISHER UNWIN IN HIS LONDON OFFICE - FROM THE PORTRAIT BY J. MCLURE HAMILTON 





SIR FREDERICK MACMILLAN - PHOTOGRAPH 


[1885-1925 } 


168 


ful apartment in the Adelphi, has not yet 
expired. There we should have remained 
had it not been for the War, for when that 
came and stayed, it was borne in upon me 
more and more that my place was in my 
own country. After we left Bloomsbury, 
we first had rooms in North Street, West- 
minster, then in Barton Street, a lovely 
old paneled house, and there my father 
died. Then we wandered for many months, 
from Bruges to Buda Pest, doing our long 
cycling ride to that city from Calais. And 
then we went to Transylvania and I illus- 
trated E.’s book To Gypsytanp and on 
that journey we had endless adventures, 
including mine in Russia. But London 
called us back and we took our chambers 
in Buckingham Street and after fourteen 
years there—though I was in them little 
of the time—had our apartment built on 
the roof of Adelphi Terrace House, where 
we stayed till 1917. During our thirty 
years in London many people came to us 
and, at one time, for privacy, we took to 
having evenings, that was in Bucking- 


rs 









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GEORGE MOORE : FROM A PEN DRAWING BY 
WALTER SICKERT - MADE IN THE NINETIES 


CHAPTER XIX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR: 





PHIL MAY + PORTRAIT BY SIR J. J. SHANNON 


ham Street, and we had them every Thurs- 
day. Some centred round Phil May—not, 
as at the last in riding dress, which PuNcH 
more or less compelled him to wear, as 
Shannon painted him, but in solemn black, 
when his nose rivaled his glowing cigar 
held in one hand, a glass of whisky in the 
other. He was always smiling and balanc- 
ing himself on top of the William Morris 
chair and it never went over, he never 
fell off. He said little but took it all in. 
Everybody loved him. Hartrick, Sullivan, 
Beardsley and Walter Crane would be there 
and McLure Hamilton, and we would have 
to rush him out if Whistler came, and 
George Moore and Sickert and McColl 
would look in. This was before we all 
fought. Bob Stevenson and Marriott Wat- 
son and George Steevens and Charles Whib- 
ley and Ivan Muller, after they had put 


[1885-1917] 





SHAW AND SOME OTHERS - WHO CAME TO SEE US 





WALTER CRANE +: PORTRAIT BY G. F. WATTS 


Tue NATIONAL OBsERVER to bed, would 
help Henley and his crutches up our three 
flights of stairs in Buckingham Street, and 
then there was talk, Henley leaning out 
of a window with someone beside him, 
drinking in the London night, to be 
worked out later as LonDoN VoLUNTARIES. 

ND it was in those days we saw so 

much of Whistler, and all sorts of 
people crowded in, from lords to Amert- 
cans. Page with his delightful stories and 
utterly unspoiled by his dignity, Henry 
James sitting by the fire in the twilight, 
Abbey sometimes, Sargent a few times, 
Frederick Sandys—we met all the Pre- 
Raphaelites save Dante Rossetti; THE 
Century editors and many others; endless 
artists and authors; critics, gallery direc- 
tors, dealers from all over the world. It 
was a wonderful place and a wonderful 
time and wonderful people came to us, and 
night after night, year after year, it went 
on. All we did was talk and look out of 
the window. There were other things too, 
things youcan getinanycivilizedcountry. 


169 


There were the dinners of Augustine, our 
cook and our overlord, Augustine whom 
every one from Whistler down was afraid 
of but loved. And in our flat the meet- 
ings, when the International Society of 
Painters, Sculptors and Gravers had to be 
put on its feet by Whistler, until the time 
of the arrangements for his Memorial Ex- 
hibition,were held. And in our flat too the 
original Society of Illustrators was born 
and had many meetings. And the Sene- 
felder Club flourished in Adelphi Terrace. 
And the politics and policies of the Inter- 
national Exhibitions at Paris, St. Louis, 
Rome, San Francisco were concocted there. 
And sport and literature and cookery and 
art and good talk reigned in our rooms. 








W.E. HENLEY « FROM THE BUST BY A. RODIN 
NOW IN THE CRYPT OF ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL 


[1885-1917] 


CHAPTER XX: THE ENGLISH CATHEDRALS - START 
ING TO MAKE DRAWINGS OF THEM: LIFE AND ADVENTURES 
IN CATHEDRAL CITIES AND TOWNS: WELLS UP TO DURHAM 

















CATHEDRALS » EXCELLENT EXAMPLE OF THE AMERICAN WOOD ENGRAVING OF THAT TIME 


HESE English and French cathe- 
drals were to have been done with 
Mrs. Van Rensselaer, but she only 
wrote of the English churches. I 
had no adventures with her. She visited 
them, I think, one summer. I stayed in 
the cathedral towns of England many 
years. I cannot remember on which I 
started in 1885, after we left London, 
where I commenced to make drawings 
of St. Paul’s, but I think it was Win- 
chester. Mrs. Van Rensselaer had sent me 
a list of subjects I should draw to illus- 


{1885 | 


trate her text. Now it is all very well for 
the author to select subjects, but I have, 
in a lifetime of experience, scarce found 
an author who had the faintest idea of 
what could be illustrated. After a few 
attempts to conform to and carry out their 
wishes, I generally end by ignoring them. 
If the manuscript is ready, or the book 
to be illustrated has been issued, I read 
it carefully, which is more than most 
professional illustrators do; I mean the 
sort of person who makes creases in cow- 
boys’ pants and seats early English girls 


, at ee OS ee ee 





a i one ea ari Sogo 


Previa ee Mrevremrevirerve vue 


RELIEF BY AUGUSTUS 


SH FITS PS PITS Fir % LEE PLE SEF SIEM FIO PCH FIG PP FILS Lew Pew piv e Flew Pee BI 


LEP FER ES 





ST. GAUDENS » NOW IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF NEW YORK 


PORTRAIT OF MRS. SCHUYLER VAN RENSSELAER 





72 CHAPTER XX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


on Chippendale chairs, or steals one of 
my Andalusian backgrounds and puts it 
in the north of Spain for local color. 
There is no merit in getting local mat- 
ters right, in taking pains, in going to 
any expense or traveling any distance. 
Holman Hunt gloried in such things. His 
prophets, the real Pre-Raphaclites and 
other artists, ignored them. Rembrandt 
put the Jews of Amsterdam, not Jerusa- 
lem, in his etchings. An artist does things 
—doesnt brag of how he did them. But it 
is pleasant to look back to one’s struggles 
after perfection. How much further off it 
now is. Abbey often spent more on an 
article than he received for it from Har- 
PER S—to get it right—but he did not 
whine. W. A. Rogers told me Abbey got 
seventy-five dollars from Harper’s for 
one drawing and spent two hundred and 
fifty on a costume for one of the figures 
in it. I wonder if Lucas knew enough to 
tell that in his Life of Abbey. 
I FORGET where we stayed in Winchester. 
It was the year after our marriage and 
the first visit to Italy, while A Cantsr- 
BURY PILGRIMAGE was going through the 
press. Winchester was a sad place; the 
long walk that leads up the long avenue 
of trees to the west door was dreary, and 
damp. There were perpendicular tombs 
in the interior—from them I began to 
learn perspective—and a mural painting 
by Benjamin West over the altar, the sub- 
ject I forget, but I am sure it is better 
than the work of most of his present- 
day fellow-countrymen in churches and 
state capitols in this land, ordered and 
done almost while you wait. But the 
view from the high hillside to the east, 
looking down on the town, low and flat 
around the great church in the midst of 
it, 1s very fine. Other views were from the 
Dean's Yard, where there were garden 
parties, for in those prehistoric days an 


American in a cathedral town was a curi- 
osity and cultivated, at any rate attempts 
were made, unsuccessful ones, to capture 
me as a strange beast, to be looked at, 
talked to and then talked about. There 
were lovely walks in the twilight by the 
little river that runs through the lower 
town. There was the school, where foot- 
ball and cricket are taught, and there is 
no pretension, so far as I know, of teach- 
ing anything else. Near by is St. Cross and 
its Abbey, where they give youa glass of 
beer when you go there as they give poor 
travelers lodgings at Rochester, and rich 
ones cherry brandy at Durham. 

ROM Winchester, if I remember right, 
E we went, E. and I, on our tricycle by 
Romsey Abbey and through that part of 
the New Forest where there are no trees, 
to Salisbury, and had our first sight of 
that cathedral from the road, the way it 
should be seen, the way it was seen by 
the pilgrims who came to it, growing 
gradually on the horizon. And how many 
memories have I of cathedrals, of castles, 
of cities, and even of countries, approached 
by road, afoot, in boats, on cycles. Only 
now they can be seen from a motor, no 
one has time to look at them and, besides, 
from a motor no one but the driver can 
see anything—you might as well travel in 
a freight car. Salisbury is, however, not a 
mass, but a spire, and out of the great plain 
it points to heaven, a landmark anda sym- 
bol. Just before we came to the town there 
was a little hill, and from the top we 
looked to the great white needle against 
a black storm cloud. Soon after, I went 
back to the hill and drew it, a poppy- 
covered wheat field in the foreground. We 
stopped at the White Hart or Red Lion, I 
forget which; not the County Hotel, but 
the great rambling place built around a 
courtyard with balconies and open stair- 
ways. The inn still stands, or did a few 


[1885 } 







































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































a 


Mu IN \\ A 


LINCOLN FROM THE LOW 
LISH CATHEDRALS »- FROCESS REPRODUCTION OF ENGRAVING IN THE CENTURY MAGAZINE 





THE ENGLISH CATHEDRALS - STUDYING COMPOSITION 


years ago. Salisbury Cathedral, within its 
precincts, is a town, surrounded by its 
own walls, entered by their own gates, in 
the midst of a great green place with huge 
trees about the church, the spire always 
soaring above, and at the outer edge, 
backed against the walls, the houses of 
the Dean and Canons, the most beauti- 
fully useless ornaments of England. Be- 
hind the cathedral, as one enters the close, 
is the Bishop’s Palace, its great park, the 
subject of one of Constable’s big machines, 
and several of his small sketches; or rather 
the cathedral seen over and through the 
trees is. It was here I first began to learn 
something about composition and from 
Constable. I hunted and hunted for his 
points of view, which give all the dig- 
nity and beauty of the place—for these 
cathedral closes are beautiful—and all 
the feeling of it, but I never could find 
the spots he had found. And then, for 
the first time, it began to dawn on me, 
dimly, vaguely, that what I must do was 
what has been done by every great artist 
who has made compositions ; though 
compositions that give the effect often 
ate not true, I learned. I found out, too, 
that I must also give the feeling of the 
place, really the feeling, the impression, 
it made on me. This is impressionism and 
not the putting down of spots, blots, 
cubes, or other mannerisms. This is the 
impressionism of Piero della Francesca, 
Velasquez, Claude, Turner, Constable, 
Whistler. It is not rendering the subject 
as it is, but giving the sensation it makes 
on you, and if that sensation is strong 
enough, others will feel it. That is impres- 
sionism—art. Salisbury is too perfect. All 
the work is of one period, I forget what, 
for to draw a thing rightly it 1s not neces- 
sary to be an architect, a photographer, a 
historian. It is really perfect early English. 
But I do not care for Salisbury; it is an 


Dye 


overgrown toy. You feel as if you would 
like to pick it up and put it away in its 
box. And the interior, bare and cold, with 
black columns of Purbeck marble like 
stovepipes, always reminded me of a 
Friends’ Meeting House warmed with 
stoves in winter. The distant views that 
Constable painted are all gone too, or 
they never existed, for I have tramped 
round the town, beyond the little river, 
and never found them. After weeks of 
trespassing I could not find them, though 
it may have been, as Turner said, a case of 
‘Dont you wish you could?’’ But I began 
to learn that I should draw things as I 
wanted to see them, as they should be, 
for, as Whistler said, ‘‘Nature is seldom 
right.’’ One must draw always from 
nature, as he did; be her master and 
know her, her servant and love her. But 
this takes “‘the knowledge of a lifetime.’ 
We met no one at the cathedral or in 
the town. We hunted up no one. I would 
usually, in these towns, go to the Dean 
or the Canon in residence and get a per- 
mit to work. Probably I made a mis- 
take, for there were interesting Deans and 
Canons in those days, Westcott, Farrar, 
Freeman, Church, but unless one had a 
letter to them, they would not see you; 
just sent out the permit to you by the 
butler. We had no letters to any one; we 
were sufficient unto ourselves. My father 
came over and went round with us that 
summer to most of the places we stayed at. 
AO Salisbury, too, a strange thing hap- 

pened. Our first book was issued 
—A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE. Secleys, 
the publishers, sent us the first copy, and 
I remember, in the coffee room of the 
hotel, opening THe Dairy News, for 
which Andrew Lang then wrote—he was 
the literary Crichton of the day; what 
would he have thought of his successors, 
things like those we now have here ?— 


{ 1885 | 


176 


and finding in the paper a leader about us 
and the book! ‘“The Most Wonderful Shil- 
ling’s Worth Modern Literature has to 
Offer.’ And I remember running up to 
London to arrange for the American edi- 
tion and getting into hot water with the 
American publishers, I forget what about; 
but neither they nor I have forgiven each 
other since. They would not even look at 
these chapters when I offered them to 
their magazine the other day. There are 
some publishers of art and letters who re- 
gard,andalwayshaveregarded, artistsand 
authors as unnecessary, though unavoid- 
able evils. Then, after the leader in Tue 
Dairy News, I bought a raft of papers, in- 
cluding THe Times, which dismissed us 
with a paragraph. I formed an estimate of 
that paper that morning, and it was that 
the London Trmzs was the most narrow 
and the most comprehensive sheet in the 
world.Thatiswhat used tothink ofitinits 
great days, before Northcliffe put his heavy 
hand on it. But tocompare it with Amert- 
can papers! Really, I did not know what I 
wastalkingabout; butall this was in 1885. 
The American papers of to-day had not been 
thought of and they would not have been 
read even by ignorant Americans then. 
RoM Salisbury we went to Lincoln, 
Fr and I, riding up from London on 
our tricycle, through St. Albans and Peter- 
borough. It is all vague, and I was by 
myself when I did Peterborough. We went 
through Cambridge, E. met me there, and 
Norman Cross; and we got on the North 
Road and then over to Sherwood, and 
stayed a day or so in the Forest and the 
Dukeries, and then came out to find Lin- 
coln towering above us on its ridge in the 
twilight. There we lived in a little house, 
taking it all, above a shop, in the little 
upper market place just outside the cathe- 
dral gate, and just inside were the Canons’ 
residences, and what a scrape I got into 


CHAPTER XX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


by giving some excuse that I was not able 
to go to a Canonical tea, and forgetting 
all about it, and sitting down to work 
right at the Canon’s front door while 
all the guests were going in to meet 
me. Naturally, we were not asked to any 
more clerical functions in Lincoln. When 
I had finished the cathedral after a long 
summer’s work we rode our tricycle down 
the old North Road to York, and wrote up 
the ride, as we followed Dick Turpin, for 
Tue Part Matt Gazette. We spent the 
winter there and lived in a house that 
looked on the front of the cathedral and 
when it was wet and cold I used to work 
from the windows. House and view are 
gone now, as I noted when I was in York 
during the War. There we did meet people 
—met the Archbishop once when he was 
returning from somewhere and we were 
also arriving by the same train from some- 
where. Two workmen were there shovel- 
ing mud; as the train stopped and his nu- 
merous retainers opened the carriage door 
and took his papers and rugs and his bags 
and shoved his hot-water bottle in under 
his feet, and they tucked him up in his 
rugs, in his episcopal coach ; one workman 
—there were workmen then—said to the 
other, as they stopped to look on, in an 
awestruck voice, ‘‘Gar, they nurses ‘im 
well, they does, Bill, dont them, dont 
thou think?’’ And we met titles and gen- 
try and Friends; and the Army and Navy, 
mostly retired—but we did not take much 
stock in them—and an intellectual set, 
who read literature to each other once a 
month. I was asked to read, and I chose 
Lowell’s ‘‘On a Certain British Conde- 
scension to Foreigners.’’ And I went skat- 
ing and paralyzed the natives with grape- 
vines and Philadelphia twists and things. 

ND it was in York I met Charles E. 
A Mallows, and for years I had in him 
my first devoted friend and pupil and fol- 


[1885 } 








ST. PAUL’S ON LUDGATE HILL - FROM A CHARCOAL DRAWING SKETCHED IN LUDGATE CIRCUS 





THE ENGLISH CATHEDRALS - AN ADVENTURE AT DURHAM 


lower. He was drawing the Cathedral in 
the old Prout architectural fashion, his 
perspective away up in the air, on a sum- 
mer and autumn trip, trying for the Pugin 
Scholarship, really traveling for it; and he 
won it, though thewinnerwas given funds 
to enable him to travel with, he won it by 
traveling. But Mallows gave up his work 
in the summers and followed me for years, 
helping me with perspectives and teach- 
ing me architecture, of which I was com- 
pletely ignorant. But I taught him how 
to draw it. In those days I also thought 
that perspective must be absolutely and 
accurately worked out and I have had 
cathedral floors covered with plumb lines, 
T squares and triangles, and ten-foot-long 
strings, till they looked, with my draw- 
ing boards, like an architect's office. And 
it was Mallows who did all this work, 
long after he became an F.R.1.B.A., long 
before I was made an Honorary Member 
of the Royal Institute of British Archi- 
tects. Mallows was of the greatest assis- 
tance to me not only in saving time, but 
in passing dreary evenings from Durham 
to the Pyrenees, and for many years he 
worked with me. But gradually I began 
to discover, first, that the camera lucida 
would do what he did quicker; and sec- 
ond, that I did not want any human or 
mechanical help in my architectural draw- 
ings. I learnedthis from studying the prints 
of Diirer and the drawings of Canaletto. 
It was Alma Tadema and Abbey and Meis- 
sonier and Rico who led me astray. The 
Primitives and the Dutch solved perspec- 
tive problems long before we invented 
them. And finally—well—poor Mallows’ 
success came to him before he died; but 
so did troubles. Still, he helped me and I 
helped him, and there was a time when he 
acknowledged it. From York we went, he 
and I, to Durham, first to the old inn— 
the Bull—where they gave you a glass of 


mee 


cherry brandy every time youcame in, ‘‘for 
the good of the house.’’ As soon as we 
could, we tooklodgings.Wealmostalways 
did, and it was a good thing for us this 
time and for the hotel too, we used to come 
in so often. Besides, we could usually get 
lodgings, charming rooms looking out on 
quiet greens, or near noisy market places 
with landladies who “‘did for us’’ but never 
stuckus or tried to.We hadan adventure in 
Durham. We were working one afternoon 
in the Galilee Chapel, which is a sort of 
under-church at the west end, and vergers 
and beadles and old women went away 
and locked us in, and it was not till it had 
begun to get dark that we stopped work 
and found it out. Now, frankly, I should 
not care to stay alone all night locked in 
a cathedral, or to stay there with Mal- 
lows either, nor do I think he was anxious 
to stay. We tried all the doors. We tried 
to make the demon knocker knock on the 
big door. We could hear people outside, 
but they would not hear us. We climbed 
up the windows, but could not open them, 
and it was not till we had given up trying 
to find a way out that we saw the bell 
ropes. Mallows grabbed all he could hold, 
and so did I, and we swung on them, and 
in a minute or two, if there were not 
sweet bells jangled, there was such a 
racket as had never been heard in Dur- 
ham. A little went a long way, and by 
the time we reached the big door a crowd 
was outside pounding at it and on the 
knocker, and we heard the fire depart- 
ment and the Bishop come, and at last, 
the last, the verger with the keys came 
and opened the door, and the Dean and 
Canons and fire department and police 
near ran over us, and wanted, when they 
saw us, to know what was the matter. 
We wanted to get out! But we only got 
out when we had convinced them that 
there was no other way of getting out. 


{ 1885 | 


180 


The church hours were always a trouble 
because, as with all things now, the 
churches opened late and closed early, 
and there were at least two services in 
between. But usually the Dean or the Can- 
on in residence would arrange that, say- 
ing, if the Lord did not mind, he did not 
mind my working during the service, so 
long as I kept outof his sight. And some 
of those English drawings were made to 
Haydn’s music, and the French to Grego- 
rian chants. I have even appeared in the 
choir in England and as a singing brother 
in France, and so drawn Evensong and 
Masses ; and when one was shut up all 
alone in a Lady Chapel or a transept, 
what could be more holy, more solemn, 
more beautiful? Nothing but Friends’ 








CHAPTER XX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Meeting. Mallowsalwaysmadeup to Bish- 
ops and Deans ; Ialways, or usually, avoid- 
edthem. But in this way herelieved me ofa 
great deal of polite conversation, which I 
abominate. I far preferred, as when at Ely, 
to dine with the Fen farmers at the mid- 
day ordinary, than at the Bishop's palace 
in the evening. I was asked to the last and 
I paid to go to the first. I think it was 
at the George, or White Hart, or Stag, or 
some other beast, that one evening, as I 
was going into the inn, I ran into Tenny- 
son coming out, muffled almost up to the 
eyes, his big hat pulled down over them, 
some one with him. My, how he wanted 
to be recognized, almost as bad as Glad- 
stone, who had the same pose. That was 
the first and the last time I ever saw him. 





ELY FROM THE RIVER » PEN DRAWING DONE FROM NATURE: FOR THE ENGLISH CATHEDRALS 


[1885 ] 





THE ENGLISH CATHEDRALS - OUR VISITORS 


A T wELLs I did dine with the Bishop in 
his crypt, or E. did—I funked it—the 
most lovely of all the English cathedrals. 
We lived in the Little Vicars’ Close and 
were happy there, where we spent the 
next summer. And then we went on to 
Gloucester, and had lodgings on theCathe- 
dral Green, and wandered by the lovely 
river, and people used to come down from 
London, T. Fisher Unwin among them, 
for week-ends. And at Canterbury, we 
stayed in the Falstaff by the City Gate, 
then a real inn, unrestored, with a bar 
and taproom all paneled, and a white 
dining room, and a little breakfast room 
looking on a garden and oast houses, and 
bedrooms in the garrets so low you bumped 
your head; and, outside were hop pickers 
waiting by the City Gate to be hired. And 
we were wakened by the cathedral chimes 


SS 


TATNES 
eon eee 





181 


and went to bed by them, and all sorts of 
people came to see us and were not ashamed, 
as they would be now, to find themselves 
in an inn of the people. But there were 
no rows at the bar, nor“do I remember 
drunks either, though it was a licensed 
house; “‘licensed to be drunk on the prem- 
ises’’, the signs say over the doors of Brit- 
ish alehouses. Ido not think any one had 
ever stayed there since Chaucer and Fal- 
staff. We made it quite a fashionable re- 
sort the summers we were there. The pub- 
lishers of Toz Century came down, and 
the R. U. Johnsons went up to Lincoln, 
while we were in that town, and we lived 
sweetly together for a while. And in this 
delightful fashion, working and playing, 
the articles were written, the book, ENc- 
LisH CATHEDRALS, was made, and the en- 
gravings done from my drawings are in it. 





PAUL’S WHARF PEN DRAWING SHOWING CATHEDRAL DOME » REPRODUCED IN THE PORTFOLIO 


{ 1885 } 


CHAPTER XXI: HAMERTON AND THE SAONE: A SUM 
MER VOYAGE -: INVITED WITH ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
BY HAMERTON - GO WITH HIM ALONE - ADVENTURES 
AFLOAT AND ASHORE -: IN AND OUT OF THE CANAL BOAT 





fy) gail 
Re E Me 


sf Bite oy, chor 
: eal PSM GR ry, ra Le 


), 


THE BOUSSEMROUM -: CANAL BOAT IN WHICH THE VOYAGE WAS MADE »* IN THE BASIN AT SCEY 


Must go back again, for, though the 

cathedral drawings took me many 

years from 1885, the Sadne journey 

was made in 1886. I wrote, as I have 
said, to Ruskin from Florence, in 1883, 
asking advice about something, and he 
never answered; and I sent him proofs he 
never returned. I have since treated in the 
same fashion people who have bored me, 
and I have no doubt they have reviled 
meas I reviled him. So I wrote Hamerton 
and sent him my big print of the Ponte 
Vecchio. He not only answered but he 
ptaised my work, as no one else had; in- 
deed, some critics had begun to damn it 
already; and ‘‘the boys’’ were fearfully 
jealous of it and he asked me to do two 


{ 1886 } 


articles on Venice for THz Portroxio and 
an etching for his book on Landscape. 
How mad “‘the boys’’ were when they 
heard. I wish I could find Hamerton’s 
letter. When I got back to London in 1885 
I did more work for Tur PortFo.io, in- 
cluding St. Paul’s Wharf, a drawing that 
Tue Grapuic, to which it was first offered, 
had rejected. Then, in 1886, I received a 
letter from Hamerton, or Richmond See- 
ley, asking me to illustrate a book on the 
Sadne and Rhone—my first commission for 
a book—I have forgotten; I illustrated a 
book on Whitman by Doctor Buck, but I 
fear it is forgotten— Hamerton was to do 
the text and I the illustrations. When the 
letter came, I was working quietly in the 









——" 


HAMERTON AND THE SAONE - HIS BOOKS AND HIS BOATS 183 


Plantin Museum at Antwerp, illustrating 
an article about it by Theodore De Vinne, 
reprinted by the Plantin authorities, and 
since published by the Grolier Club, and 
wandering round the old town in the eve- 
nings with my father, for my father was 
with me, fearfully bored, lamafraid, with 
museums and churches. Besides Hamer- 
ton, I have worked with or for most of 
the great English-speaking travel writers 
of modern times—all, really, save Steven- 
son. But I edited his Davos illustrations 
and took his sketches seriously in THE 
Stupio. And those articles, arranged for 
by Sir Sidney Colvin, made the booklets 
known, and my complete collection of 
them with Stevenson's letters were all de- 
stroyed in the War. 

EVER have I found an author so de- 
N sirous of working in harmony with 
an artist as Hamerton. He wanted to be 
an artist himself; he studied and worked 
to be one, and if study and work could 
make an artist, he would have succeeded; 
but, alas, he was only a ‘‘near’’ artist. 
But he could write. His Patnrer’s Camp 
IN THE Hicutanps and THE UNKNowN 
River turned Stevenson to canoeing and 
tramping, and not only has Stevenson ad- 
mitted it, but this voyage I was about to 
take was originally to have been made by 
Hamerton, Stevenson and Will Low. Low 
backed out and I was asked to go with 
Stevenson by Gilder of THE Century. 
Then Stevenson fell ill and I was left with 
Hamerton. Stevenson later wrote Hamer- 
ton he would always regret that he would 
never know ‘‘just where we should have 
been killed’, for he proposed to begin 
the trip on the Rhone at the foot of the 
glacier, where it starts, under the ice, 
without knowing that it came down later 
in some places in cataracts and in others 
dived under ground for kilometers, to say 
nothing of whirlpools and rapids. So it 


would have been a case of killing, not 
drowning. Hamerton left nothing to 
chance. He wrote, as soon as I accepted 
the commission, exactly what clothes to 
bring, recommended amongst others, 
overcoats and railway rugs, and ‘‘Seeley 
tells me you do not swim; would it not be 
a nice precaution to have an inflatable 
waistcoat and inflatable life belt? Myboat 
is perfectly safe, but you may fall into the 
water by accident, and I cannot promise 
to be able to fish you out, and if I didnt, 
Mrs. Pennell would never forgive me.’’ 
Finally, it was arranged that I should meet 
him on his boat at Gray on the Haute 
Sadne, and when I got there I was to pro- 
nounce his name to French people, “‘with- 
out the H, and intoning the n, thus: 
‘Amertonne’.’’ Now, his boat in which 
we were to take this ‘‘month-long picnic’’ 
was a slow one, a catamaran, rather like 
a life raft with a sail on it. But something 
went wrong with it, and he hired a canal 
boat, called a berrichon, and its name 
was the Boussemroum. It was one hun- 
dred feet long, ten feet broad, and when 
I saw it first, stood six feet out of the 
water. Ordinarily it was loaded with coal 
and then it was only a few inches above 
the surface, as it was intended to be. It 
was manned by a fiery patron, the cap- 
tain, who yelled continually, a huge pilot 
who shoved sometimes with a long pole, 
and grunted always. But the real motive 
power was a donkey, which, when the 
pilot got the affair going with his pole, 
the patron whacked to keep in motion, 
while the small boy who was hired to do 
this looked on. Hamerton was a theorist, 
but he had a brother-in-law who was an 
architect in Chalon-sur-Sa6ne. Hamerton 
lived at Pré Charmoy, which was prés 
Autun, which seemed tomecharacteristic, 
for Hamerton was prés so many things. 
He was preés being a big man—only it was 


{ 1886 } 


184 


really Pré Charmoy and not prés. The 
brother-in-law measured the boat, and 
Hamerton, without seeing it, had a cabin 
or house built to fit it amidships for him- 
self to sleep and work in, and when it 
rained, as it mostly did, we dined there. 
There were two tents for the ancien capi- 
taine en retraite, his guest, and me to 
sleep in. When we and the tents and the 
baggage and the crew, reinforced by the 
small boy and the donkey, were all aboard 
the vessel was immersed maybe a foot in 
the water; it was still about five feet out 
of it. Theoretically it was perfect; prac- 
tically it was incredible. If there was, 
when we were moving, the slightest side 
wind, the machine sped sideways across 
the canal and began to form a dam, and it 
was only by the combined yells and shoves, 
with the poles of the captain and crew, 
that she did not turn turtle and spill us 
and our traps in the water. On such occa- 
sions the donkey repudiated all responsi- 
bility and ate grass. If the wind was ahead, 
the donkey pulled harder and harder, and 
the boy hammered him more and more, 
but the beast went slower and slower, 
finally stopped, and then was pulled back- 
ward like an anchor that dragged, but 
eventually the boat was steered with poles 
and her double rudder to the bank and we 
were saved. Once or twice the donkey had 
to be cut from the tow rope to keep him 
from being hauled into the river, stern 
foremost. Still, if Hamerton’s theory did 
not work practically, it was most amaz- 
ing, if the result was not always expected, 
for sometimes we went backwards and 
sometimes sidewise, but rarely forward. 
alk HE passengers too were curious. There 
was Hamerton, an Englishman living 
in France, talking French perfectly with 
a perfect English accent; Captain Korn- 
probst, an Alsatian officer in the French 
Army, retired, living in Macon, talking 


CHAPTER XXI + THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


French with a perfect German accent; and 
myself, an American temporarily resident 
in England, speaking a French of which 
Hamerton once said he did not know 
whether he “‘was more astonished at his 
[my] fluency or the number of mistakes 
he made in so short a space of talking.”’ 
And we were all to be towed about on a 
canal boat, by a donkey. 

uT none of this struck Hamerton as 

quaint and he was kindness itself, writ- 
ing almost daily tome about coming, about 
drawing paper and rugs and the geography 
of the river, and time tables, and to E. to 
tell her that he would look after me, and 
to Gilder of Tae Century to explain why 
they should loan me to him for a while, 
“although I knowother artists who would 
be glad to join me, I dont know any that 
I should like so much, and I will not enter 
into an engagement with any one else.”’ 
And Gilder wrote to me, “‘Go; only it’s a 
funny way of taking a holiday.’’ Eventu- 
ally, Hamerton, Kornprobst and the crew 
got off from Chalon-sur-Saéne. But if the 
catamaran could not tack up the narrow 
upper river against the wind and rain and 
current—and it began to rain at once— 
no more could the donkey haul the berri- 
chon which replaced it. They were obliged 
to hitch on to a tugboat coming up, and so 
arrived at Gray, where I was waiting for 
them. As for the adventures on that boat 
are they not all recorded in Tue Saénz, 
A SumMER VoyaGEe? From Hamerton’s 
point of view but scarce from mine, and 
certainly not from Captain Kornprobst’s. 
Hamerton had his cabin and his books 
and his lamp. We each had a tent. I was 
not used to tents and I found that when 
it rained and I made a sort of basin to 
catch the rain on the roof of the tent 
with my back, the basin spilled or over- 
flowed all over me when I turned in my 
sleep, and I woke up to find my bed a bath. 


[ 1886} 








PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON + PORTRAIT BY R.J. WICKENDEN IN THE POSSESSION OF THE ARTIST 


186 


As an ancient captain and an old cam- 
paigner, Captain Kornprobst, I imagine, 
knew how to look out for himself; any- 
way, he was about early in the morning, 
spick and span, while I, equally early, was 
damp and draggled. 

UR trip up, fifteen years after’70 and 

’71, was right through the country 
where everything had happened that hap- 
pened again in 1914, and just as the South 
was waving the bloody shirt when I was 
there in 1882, so wete the French in 1887 
shrieking for revanche. They have got it 
—God help them! Behind our tugboat, 
we were pulled still further up, and the 
inquisitive can find the details in Hamer- 
ton’s book. One day, as we were being 
tugged by a brand new boat, some one had 
the brilliant idea of telegraphing—it 1s 
all in the book—that “‘a ministre accom- 
panied by three gentlemen would arrive 
at Corre with the new tugboat’’, and so 
there was an ovation ready, flowers and 
functionaries, for it seems in the language 
of that country that a jackass is sometimes 
described as a ministre—at times a not in- 
appropriate description. Hamerton was not 
a wit, though he was a charming person- 
ality, and if it had not been that the tug- 
boat was new, and that the féte meant 
for the ministre and his gentlemen was 
turned over to it, I do not know what 
would have happened. I do not really be- 
lieve Hamerton sent the telegram; I do 
not think he was capable of it, and I did 
not, and Kornprobst would not dare. There 
was a tremendous ovation at Corre, and 
there were flowers and pretty girls and 
drinks, bottles tied to poles let down to 
us in locks. To finish the affair, I had an 
inspiration, and when the townspeople of 
Corre and the crew of the tug came aboard 
and said, ‘‘Monsieur tire des plans?’’ I 
answered, ‘‘Non, moi je travaille pour 
le Roi de Prusse.’” Now, this, too, is a 


{ 1886 | 


CHAPTER XXI - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


joke in French, and means to work for 
nothing. But these peasants apparently 
did not understand jokes, even chestnuts, 
and we were so near the German frontier 
that we could, as was said to me by a 
French sergeant, ‘“‘smell the sauerkraut.”’ 
We were looked over by gendarmes, talked 
at by peasants, and inquired into by lock- 
keepers. When these things happen there 
is but one result: “You are spies.’’ And 
by the time we got to Pontailler, com- 
ing back, drifting down with the cur- 
rent, we were spies, or I was, and at 
that place four gendarmes came, caught 
us, and carried off my drawings, threw 
Hamerton and the Captain into a panic, 
one expecting to pass the rest of his days 
in prison, the other to lose his pension 
and his Cross of the Legion of Honor— 
and the Cross meant something then— 
while I certainly never expected to see my 
drawings again; and the crew would be 
ruined for being found in such company. 
There was, as usual, a tremendous jour- 
nalistic fracas, and the papers of the world 
and the authorities of France, England and 
America got excited. But after interna- 
tional pourparlers—I believe that is the 
word—as another of Hamerton’s brothers- 
in-law was a French Senator, the drawings 
were returned and we went on again; only, 
however, to be stopped at St. Jean de Losne 
and Verdun, where I saw no forts—which 
we were told not to see. But this is not 
the Verdun so horribly known to-day, 
but Verdun-sur-Doubs, only worth a line 
of mention in Baedeker, but a place of 
beauty. The trip on the Boussemroum ended 
at Chalon, but my fame as a spy preceded 
me, and, even though I got permits from 
prefects and ministres and police and gen- 
darmes, I was suspected and interrogated 
and interpreted and inquired into all the 
way to Lyons, where I went by steam- 
boat,and back to Paris. Hamerton did this 















Sak: 


atte 






ash 






y) 









THE RIVER DURGEON AT CHEMILLY - NEAR ITS JUNCTION WITH THE SAONE » PEN DRAWING 
IT WAS IN SPOTS LIKE THESE ON THE BEAUTIFUL RIVER THAT WE SPENT DAYS AND WHEN I 
HAD MADE MY DRAWING OF A SUBJECT THE DONKEY DRAGGED US TO ANOTHER DURING 
THE SIX WEEKS WE LIVED ON THE RIVER - ON THAT SUMMER VOYAGE UPON THE SAONE ALL 
THESE PEN DRAWINGS WHICH I MADE WERE DRAWN FROM NATURE WITH A GILLOT CROW 
QUILL PEN AND LIQUID INDIA INK ON BRISTOL BOARD - THERE WAS ONLY A SLIGHT PRELIM- 
INARY PENCIL SKETCH MADE TO GET THE PLACE OF THE SUBJECT ON THE PAPER AND THEN 
I DREW STRAIGHT AWAY WITH A PEN FINISHING THE DRAWING ON THE SPOT AS I SAW IT 





7A 


= 
he 
i 
3 
Z 


HAMERTON AND THE SAONE : OUR LIFE ON THE RIVER 


part later alone.I did not see him again 
for years. 
H AMERTON was delightful and kind, 
but there was something about him— 
he did not just come off; everything with 
him was, like the Boussemroum, arranged 
according to his theory. He was writing 
at the time a book called Frencu Traits, 
and in this he wanted to prove that pro- 
vincial Frenchmen did not go to cafés. 
This came from the fact that either there 
were no cafés near his place or anywhere 
in the French open country, or else that 
he did not care for cafés. So he kept us in 
his cabin night after night till bedtime, 
in serious talk, and it was good talk too; 
and sometimes there was even a petit 
verre de kirsch which we bought from 
the lock-keepers who made it. But as we 
left his cabin, the Captain would whisper 
to me, when we stayed in a town, as we 
made our way back to our windy tents, 
“Allons au café,’’ and, after a good stiff 
grog, would say, ‘‘I] est charmant, mais, 
mon cher, quel type!’’ And yet Hamerton 
lived and was married and died in France. 
But many people who have never been 
there understood it better than he; not 
that he did not know people, for he did, 
and it was he who first took me toa French 
house and introduced me to French pro- 
vincial life. And he did love camping and 
sailing, and art too. But there was through 
it all a something, a want of humor, of 
fun, a deadly seriousness that was his great 
enemy and barrier and defect. He loved 
that lazy life out-of-doors far more than I 
did then. He loved the sunrises we saw, 
as we had our early soup on deck, with- 
out any daylight-saving loafers to make 
us get up by law; he loved the sunsets and 
the long walks in the dark through night- 
ingale filled woods. He stopped in the most 
beautiful basins and back waters, and 
he cared for it all quite as much as I. I 


189 


worked from sunrise to dark—no eight 
hours—and was happy as long as I could 
work, from la soupe out of a pot to the 
kirsch at bedtime. But likethe berrichon 
he did not come quite off. Nor did he 
approve—I do not think it was envy—the 
newspaper notice given me when I arrived 
in London and Andrew Lang wrote leaders, 
and Henry Norman special articles by ‘Our 
Own Commissioner’’ about our adventures. 
I got a long, long letter of advice from 
M. Jusserand, then in the French Embassy 
in London, telling me to be careful, and 
official permits to draw in forbidden places 
from the French authorities—of course, 
the American could do nothing. But the 
end was important. For though these papers 
did not protect me from the spy-bitten 
peasant, they did assure my position with 
the intelligent official. But it is all over. 
I shall probably never draw in, or maybe 
never see, France again. 

HE book appeared, THESAONE, A SuM- 

MER VoyacE. It was illustrated with 
pen drawings, reproduced by process, and 
printed far better than they could be, or 
rather would be, to-day, for we have got 
beyond all that, gottophotographs, smut, 
comics and movies. These are our great 
American art. I dont know whether the 
book was a success financially or numer- 
ically, but it had character and started 
houseboating and canal traveling in Eu- 
rope. The Tile Club had done the same 
thing here. The Sadne 1s the great artery 
of water communication between Belgium, 
Holland, Germany and France. Barges ran 
from the upper Rhine to the lower Rhone 
by way of the Saéne, and there were con- 
nections with the Seine and the Garonne, 
all used for water traffic. So well did this 
pay France that the boats went free 
through the locks, under the hills which 
had been pierced with water tunnels, 
through short cuts to save time and dis- 


{ 1886 } 


Igo 


tance; they lay at night in basins made to 
receive them, and by day were dragged or 
towed to their destinations, and all this 
ona small river that we would spurn. We 
make no use either of our big rivers, and 
our canals are in ruins, so our country 1s 
perfect—in our blind conceit, smug cock- 
sureness, we are sure that we are the great- 
est, the biggest, the richest, the driest and 
therefore the most virtuous country in the 
world—only we dont know the whole 
world has an absolute contempt for us in 
our blindness, and only flatters us in order 
not to pay its debts, and to drag us into 
the League of Nations and the World Court 
when our own courts are comic and our 
nation is rotten with notions and fads. 

s for the other Verdun—It was a year 
A or more later when one day a rumor 
came to London that France had been in- 
vaded or Germany, I forget which, and 
that a somebody named Schnaebele had 
got over one frontier or the other and 


hy Vy ay NON 
a \ we MS 


CHAPTER XXI - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


been shot. He disappeared in the clouds 
of war which turned into the fog of rumor. 
But to be in the war that did not come off 
and to become, for the first time, a war 
correspondent, I started for the frontier 
where Schnaebele was said to have ap- 
peared. With me was Sir Henry Norman, 
Bart., M.P., as he is now. Then he was 
plain Henry Norman, on the staff of THE 
Patt Matz Gazette. Norman and I set 
out on bicycles, for we wanted to get 
ahead of the other correspondents, and 
eventually we got to Verdun—dear, calm, 
delightful, peaceful, beautiful, provincial 
Verdun, with a wonderful hotel. Though 
we hunted for that war all the way to 
Nancy and Metz, between lunch and din- 
ner each day, and then over the Vosges to 
Strasbourg, we never found it, but we had 
a perfect time. When I went again to Ver- 
dun in 1917, I did find war, and myself in 
it. But that is another story. But I shall 
never find again the France that is lost. 





A HOUSE AT ORMOY - PEN DRAWING - ONE OF THE LITTLE UNSPOILED VILLAGES OF THE 
UPPER SAONE + PROBABLY DESTROYED DURING THE WAR : IF REBUILT UTTERLY RUINED 


[1886] 








CHAPTER XXII: THE LONDON CITY COMPANIES - I 
DRAW IN THEM AND DINE AT THEM - AM GIVEN A LUNCH 
AT THE MANSION HOUSE AND DINE AT THE GUILD HALL 






























































BAKE, CRIN 
Mes Re 
























































STATIONERS’ HALL AND ITS LITTLE GARDEN IN STATIONERS’ HALL COURT LUDGATE HILL 
LONDON : FROM THE PEN DRAWING IN THE LIBRARY OF THE AMERICAN TYPE FOUNDERS’ CO. 


was to have done the London City 
Companies with Sir Norman Moore, 
the Warden of St. Bartholomew’s. I did 
do one article on them for THE CEen- 
tury with him; then with the City of Lon- 
don Librarian I was to have made a book 
for Fisher Unwin to publish. But Tom R. 
Way got hold of the idea and lithographed 
the Halls, and that was the end of it. Even 
my drawings are sold and scattered all over 


the world. But the other day Fisher Unwin 
asked why we could not still do them. 
They are among the many things I shall 
never do. My connection with the City— 
the City of London—came from the article I 
did with Sir Norman Moore on the Church 
of St. Bartholomew the Great for THE 
Century. Doctor—Sir—Norman Moore 
was the Warden of St. Bartholomew's 
Hospital, lived in it, in Little Britain, 


[1887] 


192 


and knew and loved the City. The article 
on the church was illustrated before Sir 
Aston Webb laid hands on it and made it 
into what he thought it must have been, 
and, if it was, it never should have been. 
All the growth of centuries, the character 
of the place, he destroyed. Yet even now 
it is the finest church in London, the finest 
Norman church I know in Great Britain. 
Gone, too, is Cloth Fair, that perfect 
street of old half-timbered and plastered 
houses, one that escaped the fire of Lon- 
don. Almost the only records of it are 1n 
the etchings and lithographs that Whis- 
tlerand Imade. The churchyard, the home 
of cats and dump-heap of the neighbor- 
hood, black and dismal, showed, the last 
time I saw it, a few defaced tombstones 
above ground, and the gabled backs of 
the half-timbered and plastered houses 
framed it in. But its character, and the 
gateway too, is gone. Not far off are Bun- 
hill Fields—Bunyan and Defoe lie there 
with the other dissenters, under big mon- 
uments—an even more melancholy rest- 
ting place, but Friends’ Burying Ground, 
near by, is quiet and clean and peaceful; 
George Fox’s grave is in it, the only grave 
with a little stone, but other Friends lie 
in unmarked graves, as in the old grave- 
yards of Philadelphia Meetings. 
O NE day Doctor Moore told me of the 
treasures of the Barber-Surgeons’Com- 
pany and took me to the Hall. From the 
street this, like nearly all the Halls of the 
London City Companies, is only a door- 
way. Once within the door, which only 
a member of the Company or a well known 
Londoner like the Doctor can open, you 
find hidden behind offices and warehouses 
a palace, and, large and small, there are 
forty or fifty of the Companies. On the 
walls of the Barber-Surgeons’ Hall was a 
great Holbein, a group with Henry VII 
in the center, and in the middle of the 


CHAPTER XXII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Hall, a great table covered with slashes 
and cuts. These cuts were made, the Doc- 
tor told me, by the members of the Guild, 
one day studying anatomy on it and the 
next dining off it. The idea at once occurred 
to me, why should I not do an article on 
the City Guilds? Doctor Moore might 
write it. 1am not going into a history of 
the City Corporation or the Guilds of 
London, and will only say that the Guilds 
govern the Corporation of London and 
the Corporation governs the City. 

T was by no means easy to get to work, 

but I found that Edmund Gosse knew 
the Master of a Company—the Girdlers. 
What a Girdler may have been I do not 
really know, and the Girdlers are not 
quite sure either. But the Master of the 
Company at that moment was in the same 
government office with Gosse. One day I 
was taken by Gosse in a cab to the Hall. 
Away somewhere, hidden in the City, 
was the door of this Company, guarded 
by a gorgeous Beadle. Within, a paneled 
hallway, designed most likely by Chris- 
topher Wren and carved by Grinling Gib- 
bons, the hall to the left, and to the right 
a splendid stairway. Within the Hall the 
Master awaited us—and also a lunch, for 
one of the functions of Guilds is to dine 
on what is left of their incomes after tech- 
nical schools, almshouses and scholarships 
are founded and maintained; even then 
some of the Companies have difficulty in 
spending it all. It is derived either from 
rents or some monopoly, or, in the case of 
The Goldsmiths, The Stationers, The Fish- 
mongers and The Carpenters, their callings, 
which they exercise still, though few of the 
other Companies follow their trades or 
crafts or have members who do. We lunched 
at a great oak table, the Master and Ward- 
ens, the Court, and a few guests present; 
the table covered with a wondrous cloth, © 
a great rug given to the Girdlers long ago 


{ 1887 | 





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THE STREET DOOR OF THE BREWERS’ HALL - PEN DRAWING DONE FROM NATURE ABOUT 1888 


196 


by some Eastern merchant in return for 
their hospitality, but they knew little 
about it, and less about their own Com- 
pany. I got not only what I wanted—per- 
mission to draw—but an invitation to one 
of their great dinners, the first City Com- 
pany’s Dinner I ever attended, a function 
few Americans have attended. Many quiet 
days were spent in the old Hall. All the 
Halls I drew were beautiful, all the Com- 
panies hospitable. Nothing in the world 
surpasses the beauty of the old Halls, the 
gorgeousness of the new, and the lavish- 
ness and luxury of the banquets. Each Hall 
has its character. The Stationers’ is hung 
with the banners of the Masters. The 
Skinners’ was like an old cedar chest filled 
with a strange odor. The Brewers’ has a 
beautiful door with a beautiful court; the 
Merchant Taylors’, a somber splendor. 
Other Companies are proudest of their 
silver and gold plate; a few, of their por- 
traits of their Masters. The Ironmongers 
had Walton for a member. One or two 
have gardens with a tree or a rose bush in 
the center—almost worshipped because of 
the value of the ground it grows in. And 
all are but dependencies of the Great Guild 
Hall and the Mansion House, the heart of 
the Corporation and its stomach. No mat- 
ter how much good—some say harm—the 
City Guilds may do, they preserve the 
character of the City of London and give 
the most amazing dinners. To many of 
these I have had the honor of being in- 
vited, and, in the words of those who 
reply to toasts, ‘I hope I may be asked 
again,’ that is, if lever see London again 
and they exist. The invitation to dinner 
comes on a big card, usually for six-thirty 
or seven. Late dinners are not favored in 
the City. Dressed in your best, with—oh, 
so long ago—the doors of the hansom and 
your overcoat open, you are driven East 
through the crowds hurrying West, a con- 


CHAPTER XXII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


spicuous announcement that a dinner is 
on at some Guild. Your driver may take 
you down Thames Street or by Billings- 
gate Market—but not if you are wise, for 
the remarks of the Fish Porters, Freemen 
of the City of London, are not nice, and 
you feel worse than Dives—or up the 
steep hill by Cannon Street Station, or to 
Ironmonger Lane, where you are caught 
in a jam and then have to get out and 
walk, or at Printing House Square you 
may get behind the guards marching to 
protect the bank at night and have to go 
at a walk. Eventually you arrive at an 
ancient door, and there will be carpet laid 
across the pavement. Inside are the Beadles 
in cocked or top hats and a troop of serv- 
ants, and a ‘‘howler,’’ as you approach 
the entrance of the Hall, announces in a 
loud voice your name, your titles and 
your honors. As he gets your name wrong, 
unless you happen to be something in the 
City, it is bearable, for no one save your 
host has ever heard of you—business men 
are as ignorant of eminent men in London 
as in New York—and your embarrassment 
is quite removed when a great, gold- 
crowned, white-bearded, ermine-cloaked 
figure, adorned with a gold chain, ap- 
proaches and greets you affectionately, 
and then two others, like unto him, almost 
embrace you. You feel at last that you too 
are a person of distinction, and are about 
to express your great appreciation of your 
hosts’ intelligence, whom you have never 
seen before, when Mr. John Smith, Mayor 
of Little Pedlington, and Alderman of the 
Borough of Within and Without, is an- 
nounced, and you find yourself not only 
forgotten, but carefully steered away from 
the magnificent presences. You would be 
singularly outraged and utterly offended 
if, when you had reached the edge of the 
assembled guests, you did not see the IIlus- 
trious Mayor and the next guest, the Vic- 


[1887 } 




































































GIRDLERS’ HALL - THE GREAT TABLE CLOTH - THE COMPANY’S BANNERS AND THE MINSTRELS 
GALLERY + THIS IS ONE OF THE FEW HALLS NOT DESTROYED BY THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON 


198 


torious Major General, treated in the same 
fashion; and then you understand it is 
part of the function. Usually, if you are 
anybody, you find some one you know 
has been asked and, if you are lucky, put 
beside you; it was in that way I got to 
know many R. A.’s. They were asked for 
their titles, not for their work, as I was. 
I was asked, too, because I was to make 
drawings, though I did not know any 
members of some Companies. 
DISTINGUISHED Colonel I know got 
his red face not at the front—though 
I suppose he went in the War and prob- 
ably never came back—but from the din- 
ners of the Shore Porters’ or Coal Heavers'’ 
Company, of which he was a Warden; and 
there was an artist—a sculptor, I mean— 
a member of the Merchant Taylors’, anda 
lawyer I also knew was a Skinner, and an 
architect a Dock Porter, and I happen to 
know Sir Alf Bower, Lord Mayor and 
Vintner—he follows his own profession 
of running “‘publics’’—of London this 
year, or I did know him when we rode 
tricycles, long ago. There were reasons, 
besides the dinners, for joining the Com- 
panies. When you became a Warden and 
finally a Master, you went to luncheons— 
not a Rotary hogging hurry, or even an 
American Business Man’s Lunch Club 
affair in London—not to bolt your “‘eats”’ 
while some fool cackled, but to lunch 
really, an event Americans know nothing 
of; and also, when you got there and took 
up your plate, you found a five-pound note 
under it to pay for your attendance. And 
there were boxes of candies or gloves or 
fans to take home to your ladies from the 
various Guilds which bore those names 
but were mostly without members who 
practised the profession of conf¢ctioner, 
glovemaker, fanmaker. And then, when 
a Lord Mayor is elected from your Com- 
pany, you ride in a carriage in the Lord 


CHAPTER XXII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Mayor’s Show in your robes and a top 
hat, the Beadle on the box, and the ban- 
ners of your Company waving before you 
down Ludgate Hill, and you are asked to 
Mansion House functions and Guild Hall 
dinners. I have been to all the Halls. 
I even, with Abbey, have had a lunch 
given me at the Mansion House, but as 
they do not have reporters—at Mansion 
House lunches there are no speeches—no 
one believed it, and I was made to feel 
that, although the lunch was given be- 
cause my drawings of War Work were 
being shown in the Guild Hall Gallery, 
I was only an unfortunate artistic neces- 
sity. But the Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs 
were there in state, with the Minister of 
Munitions, and Lords, and my friends too. 
Wells was there. I forget the rest, but it 
was a really distinguished lot I selected. 
I was asked to do that. I even know the 
present Lord Mayor, have been invited 
to the inaugural banquet on the ninth of 
November and seen the reception and the 
baron of beef, but I escaped the speeches. 
When the company at the different Guild 
Halls has all assembled and you know 
from the table cards where you are to sit— 
you can read either Thackeray’s descrip- 
tion of a City dinner or mine—then the 
Beadle, in his robes, with his staff, an- 
nounces that dinner is served, though you 
usually do not hear him, but follow slowly 
the company going to the Hall door— 
not fight your way in, as here, an hour 
late. Sometimes the Master and Wardens 
are preceded by Blue Coat Boys, chanting 
carols, or trumpeters, blowing blasts, and 
gradually all arrive at their places in the 
great dining hall, the Master and the 
guests of honor at the high table before 
the glittering plate displayed behind them 
on the great sideboard. Then the toast- 
master, who is a paid servant there, not 
an amateur bore, as here, announces, ‘Your 


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ENTRANCE DOORWAY TO THE BREWERS’ HALL - BUILT 1673 + SEE DATE OVER DOORWAY 
THE NAMES OF SOME OF THE BIG LONDON BREWERS WHO HAVE BEEN MEMBERS ARE CARVED 
AND PAINTED IN THE PANELS ON THE WALLS - PEN DRAWING MADE IN THE HALL 1888 


200 


Royal Highness, your Excellencies, My 
Lords, The Master and Wardens, mem- 
bers of the Guild and Gentlemen, pray 
silence for grace by His Grace, the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury’ or the Archdeacon 
of London, who lives to say grace at City 
Dinners but eventually dies of eating them 
—or by the minstrels who sing in their 
gallery. And that, till the dinner is over, 
is the end of them. The fashion of having 
a braying jackass standing up and blither- 
ing and some advertising fool answering 
him all through dinner would not be tol- 
erated save in this land of funeral-baked 
dry hypocrisy, where one hundred million 
people have not only never attended a real 
banquet, but never had a decent dinner. 
Even Englishmen dine for pleasure; we 
only eat to fill our bellies: such is high- 
toned America. And so we have to dine 
and jazz and movie and dance and get 
through the “‘eats’’ at our cold-storaged 
feasts, for we have forgotten how to talk 
and cannot sit still a minute. But if you 
want an inane row, go to an American 
public dinner where there are females. 
They squeak and shriek even as they end- 
lessly run in and out of the room. 
ali HE Master and Wardens take off their 
crowns and robes, keeping on their 
chains, and the serious business begins, 
not with hors d’ceuvrés, but with real 
turtle soup, with the turtle in it, and 
sherry a hundred years old. You can see 
it another day in the cellars and taste it 
too; and see the turtles alive at Birch’s or 
Ring and Brymer’s. The dinner goes on 
for hours. I wish I had a menu—they 
went with E.’s cook books in the War. 
There is no music or singing or dancing, just 
eating; not even much talking, save good 
advice from your neighbors as tq what 
you shall eat and what you shall drink. 
And, finally, but not before one or two 
old gentlemen have fallen asleep or some 


CHAPTER XXII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


one has slipped under the table, the toast- 
master again appears and says, ‘‘Gentle- 
men on the right, charge your glasses. 
The Master will take wine with -you.”’ 
And he rises and drinks with them; and 
then the same to the left. When this is 
over, and the cloth removed, the toast- 
master says, ‘Gentlemen, you may smoke.”’ 
No fool would be allowed to foul the air, 
nor would he ruin his sense of taste, with 
rotten trash called cigarettes during din- 
ner. Then the loving cup is borne aloft 
into the Hall. The Master rises, and the 
guest on the left rises. He turns to the 
right, and the guest on his right rises, 
and the man behind him rises. They stand, 
the Master touches the cup to his lips, 
Wipes it with a napkin, hands it to the 
guest on the right, who, if he likes it, 
takes a good big pull and wipes it. The 
man behind the Master sits down, the 
guest hands it to the man on his right, 
and another behind him springs up, the 
Master sits down. ‘‘Why do they have to 
have four up at once?”’ asked. The mem- 
ber said, ““To keep the man who is drink- 
ing from being stabbed in the back,’’ and 
then it dawned upon me why people herd 
at Childs’,or crowd one table when there 
are half a dozen empty ones, in America. 
But I do not think the American custom 
of calling a man Tom whom you have not 
seen for years, before you stab him or 
strike him for ten dollars, comes from 
this. It is pure and undefiled American 
brutality and vulgarity. Then, while the 
loving cup goes around, boxes of real 
cigars appear—not two or three ina cheap 
paper bag which the other diners steal as 
a joke, as I have had happen here. Iam 
not able to say whether, at the last—and 
it will be the last so long as the country 
is dry—Pennsylvania Society banquet I 
attended, a former Governor or a present 
Judge stole mine, but I do know who prom- 


[1887 | 








SIR WILLIAM TRELOAR +» LORD MAYOR OF LONDON IN ALL HIS GLORY 
FROM THE PAINTING BY TENNYSON COLE - BY PERMISSION OF THE CORPO- 
RATION OF THE CITY OF LONDON TO WHOM THE PAINTING BELONGS 


202 


ised me a drink and forgot it. That was a 
Senator, and his bottle was under the 
table. But nothing that should be re- 
membered is forgotten at the Guilds. All 
is as it should be there and never is here. 
The waiters do not cadge for tips, saying 
“T’m going now.”’ I remember one who 
did, and the British General near whom 
I sat getting up and replying ‘‘Go, then, 
and God bless you.’’ Port is passed round, 
and when every one is ina blissful state, 
the toastmaster again emerges and prays 
in a voice of thunder for ‘‘Silence for His 
Gracious Majesty the King”’ or Queen, 
whichever it happens to be, and then for 
‘the other members of the Royal Family’, 
and then ‘“The Army and Navy and Re- 
serve Forces.’’ Coupled with the name of 
any known person who may happen to be 
‘present who is called on to reply. I never 
was called on. Last of all, is the toast of 
the health of the Master and prosperity 
to the Guild. Each of these toasts requires 
a glass and there are few heel taps. If Roy- 
alty is there, He replies always in these 
words, the numbers alone changed—some- 
times he also proposes the Guild—'’My 
revered grandfather attended these de- 
lightful functions fifty-two times, my re- 
spected father attended these happy re- 
unions sixty-three times. I have attended 
five times. I hope you will ask me again.”’ 
and down he sits amid terrific cheers, or 
“T give you the Worshipful Guild, root 
and branch; may it flourish forever.’’ In- 
describable applause, which continues in 
various parts of the hall interspersed with 
“God Save the King’’—or Queen, as may 
be—as long as any one can make a noise. 
Then we retire to the upper rooms, some- 
times in summer to the tiny garden. At 
one Hall there is a pool in the center with 
a fountain, which vied in its flow with 
the port, but the next time I went the 
fountain was covered up. ‘‘Why?”’ said I. 


CHAPTER XXII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


“Oh, well, you know, maybe it was the 
last time you wete here an old gentleman 
fell in the pond and nobody seemed to 
notice him till morning, but he fell on 
his back and the water didnt cover his 
nose and mouth. So we thought the next 
time he might fall on his face, and we 
board it up now when we have big din- 
ners.’’ At last we leave and, as we leave, 
boxes of bon-bons or gloves or parasols 
or fans, and such things as ladies used to 
like before women got the vote, things 
that once were made by the members of 
the Guild you have dined with, are 
handed to us. And then we try to find our 
hat and coat checks. I once saw the pres- 
ent King of England lost in a hat scrim- 
mage at a dinner. And then we are asked 
about our carriage and told the last taxi 
went long ago, and so into the dark street 
—and some of those London alleys are so 
narrow that it is difficult to keep in them 
after a city dinner—and so, at last to bed. 
I Too belong toa Guild, The Art Workers’ 

Guild, the only full American member, 
but we, though we have a Hall and give 
dinners and lectures and plays, are a work- 
ing Guild, not a dining company—even 
if each evening we meet we have ‘‘an 
intermission”’ and after that the exchange 
of views is more lively. I belong also to 
The Club, The Johnson Club, we own the 
House in Gough Square where Johnson 
lived, we dine there and listen to papers 
after our supper of steak, larks and kid- 
ney pie, apple tarts, and welsh rarebits, 
washed down with good beer and topped 
off with good punch—so good it would 
convert a prohibitionist, or kill him. We 
only, as Augustine Birrell once said ata 
supper, ‘‘feel the larks and the kidneys 
struggling for utterance within us,’’ some- 
times, when we have to make speeches. It 
isa dear little Club and everyone, save Dr. 
Johnson, has belonged or tried to get in. 


{ 1888 } 





CHAPTER XXIII: THE FRENCH CATHEDRALS - SUM 
MERS IN FRANCE DRAWING THEM WHILE MRS. PENNELL 
WROTE OF THEM - OUR ADVENTURES IN SOME OF THEM 





ROUEN FROM BON SECOURS : ETCHING DONE 


nw 1888 I got the commission to do 

the French cathedrals in a letter from 

Gilder which came one Christmas 

morning in London. First there was 
Notre Dame in Paris. I was far more in- 
terested in the devils on the gallery and 
the views from it than in the rest of the 
building, especially the bare interior. The 
Minister of Fine Arts gave me permission 
to use one of the towers as a studio and 
day after day I toiled up and drew a devil 
and heard his story from the Old Guard- 
ian, a relic of 1870. The devil was only a 
copy; Viollet-le-Duc saw to that. The 
Guardian told me stories of the siege, 
when the Arc de Triomphe was black be- 


ABOUT I900+ FROM THE ROAD TO PARIS 


fore the fires outside the fortifications, 
and how the Communists piled wood and 
straw up and set the doors of the church 
ablaze, but he stuck to the towers; and 
stories of the suicides till the wire nets 
were put up below the balcony around 
the towers; of the man who threw himself 
over and repented as he fell and grabbed 
a gargoyle, slowly slipping till his last 
finger gave way; and of the woman who 
rushed up and jumped over and was 
caught by her skirts, which tore as she 
struggled; and of those who jumped clear 
and bounded up in the air when they hit 
the pavement; and how they all would 
rush out of the door of the stairs and hurl 


{ 1889 } 


204 


themselves over when he was not look- 
ing. I wonder if he told these stories to 
Victor Hugo? And there was the cat that 
leaped from angle to angle over the empty 
space below. And it was in the tower that 
Whistler found me and made me a pris- 
oner, and has kept me ever since. And 
Beardsley, who was with me in Paris in 
1893, climbed up too, and made me into 
a chimera. I went to Chartres, heavenly 
beyond words, with its wonderful glass, 
wonderful site and wonderful porches. 
And to Caen that I hated, where there 
was nothing to draw but history; and 
the best drawing I made was of a cab- 
stand which hid everything but the spires 
of the ugly church. And to Poitiers, with 
its market and awful decorations in per- 
fect little Notre Dame du Port. It was 
here, when I was drawing a Romanesque 
side door, all that remained of the Roman- 
esque cathedral, that one of Viollet-le- 
Duc’s pupils came to me and said he 
would, if he had his way, pull all the 
Gothic church down and rebuild it like 
the Romanesque door. There were vandals 
in France even then. That is what is called 
restoration and what Viollet-le-Duc did 
all over the country, and the imported 
French architect is doing here, for the 
French hate allarchitecture before Hauss- 
mann, and the American French students 
do too, and are ruining our land with 
their abominations, and they destroy every 
original American creation to set up their 
French imitations. At Poitiers there was 
a Minor Canon who spent his days play- 
ing Wagner, while I drew. And at Péri- 
gueux, I was told to draw things that 
had been blown up with dynamite years 
before by Abadie, the other restorer of 
French cathedrals, as was known to every 
one but Viollet-le-Duc and Fergusson—but 
their standard works were published previ- 
ously—and to that crime I reconciled my- 


CHAPTER XXIII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


self as best I could with free truffles at the 
hotel. And I went to Toulouse, with its 
palaces and big market square, and people 
talking the most amazing ‘‘Toulousaing”’ 
French. And to Albi, that wonderful 
brick church with its wonderful stone 
porch and interior like no otheranywhere. 
And to Le Puy, which we called “The 
Most Picturesque Place in the World,’’ 
and it is. And then to Provence—Arles 
and St. Gilles, where Daudet’s relations 
lived, and the people would scarce speak 
of him because of his Lerrres p—E Mon 
Movutin and TarTARIN DE TARASCON, 
which had just been published. 
P ERHAPS Of it all there was nothing I 
loved better than the quiet days in 
Arles with the old caretaker who looked 
for snails inthe grass plot of the cloisters 
as the curé looked for souls at the altar. 
The old man had an ancestor who, dur- 
ing the Revolution, took his money, fled 
to London, and, to make sure of his for- 
tune forever, deposited it in the Bank of 
England; and there was the will, and it 
said so. I had a copy of the will made and 
I showed it at the Bank in London; but 
they said they got that sort of thing every 
day. Iam sure the old man thought mea 
thief, and I am not sure that the Bank of 
England was not, or that the money 
was not confiscated after Waterloo; it 
would have been in the last War. And 
while I was in Arles, Van Gogh was there 
—le fou—who every month or so hada 
mission to cut off somebody’s ears, and 
when the devil entered into him he would 
be locked up in his room with his paints. 
There he would make masterpieces that 
were not wanted, till one day in Auvers no- 
body was round to have their ears cut off, 
so he cut his own throat or shot himself. 
And there were many other summers in 
many other French cathedrals: Bourges, 
the most imposing front in all France— 


[ 1890 } 








LE PUY ‘‘THE MOST PICTURESQUE PLACE IN THE WORLD”’ - REPRODUCED FROM A PROOF OF 
THE PLATE WHICH WAS RUINED IN THE WAR : IN THE COLLECTION OF MRS. W. H. FOX 





206 


weeks, and weeks in the cathedral there; 
and Rheims, with its history—free cham- 
pagne at the swell hotel; and Laon, then 
the loveliest and most isolated of them all, 
a whole summer; and Le Mans, Amiens, 
Beauvais, Rouen—nothing more beauti- 
ful in beautiful France than these beau- 
tiful cathedral towns, then unvisited by 
tearing, tooting tourists making motor 
flights through France. 

LMostT always, while I was doing the 

French work, I lived in commercial 
hotels. The French are utterly different 
from the English, where the outsider is 
not allowed in, though when I got in and 
they asked me what I did, I told them I 
traveled in Art. But as I had to carve for 
a tableful of stodgy Britons or stand 
drinks all round, I did not join them after 
ruining one or two joints and committing 
other crimes. In France, the commercial, 
the commis voyageur, goes to the hotel 
where one dines best and where there are 
the best people; usually the Army mess 
is there too, if it is a garrison town; and 
the voyageur never talks shop, but he 
talks interestingly and amusingly and in- 
cessantly. Has the War, and, what is worse, 
the mean English and the low American 
tripper, killed it all, since the invasion of 
doughnuts and doughboys, Tommy and 
Tipperary? Soissons, the only cathedral 
town I have been to after the War, is ruined 
and the hotel too. Madame used to sit at 
the head of the table serving their favorite 
dish to her favorite voyageurs and the towns- 
people; that was before the Touring Club 
copied from the English, and the ridiculous 
entente cordiale and the other sentimental 
rubbish that ended in War. No automo- 
bilists save the voyageurs who came in 
their own cars, and me or us—that is, 
E. or Mallows, or both—we ever saw. 
And then the café after breakfast, where 
we stoked and read the hot noontide 


CHAPTER XXIII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


away. We had been working from sun- 
rise till eleven and we went back to work 
from two or three till dark. The caféagain 
after dinner; the musique militaire; les 
retraites aux flambeaux; long talks over 
short drinks with the people, spun out for 
hours; meetings with Shaw and with rare 
artists and architects who came over either 
with the Art Workers’ Guild, or on Amer- 
ican Architectural Cycling Tours, which 
I tried to personally conduct. Once a social 
complication—Laon selected by the com- 
plicators because it was unknown; but 
never a tourist; sometimes fétes on Sun- 
days, sometimes tramps round about the 
country. That is the France I know and 
shall never see again. The results are in 
FRENCH CaTHEDRALS by Mrs. Pennell, and 
the drawings buried somewhere in the 
Luxembourg Gallery cellars. 

N experience that was not pleasant I 

had in one of these inns. At Arles I 
fell ill with cholera and scared everybody 
to death, and the landlady thought the 
authorities would shut the Hételdu Forum, 
but they hid me in a garret. The old doc- 
tor came and asked if I had made my will, 
for, said he, “‘I am going to put you to 
sleep for twenty-four hours, and when you 
wake up you will either be dead or cured.”’ 
I woke up, but it took months for me to 
do anything more than crawl round, for I 
felt as if all my insides were gone. The life 
la bas is in Play 1n Provence that E. and 
I wrote—our life in the summers we spent 
there, when we discovered Martigues and 
les joutes—then unspoiled—now on Cook's 
program. Another time down there at the 
féte of the Saintes I took too much chloro- 
dyne and knew it, and went and drank up 
all the cognac and rum I could get; and 
that did no good, and I knew if I went to 
bed and to sleep, I should never wake up. 
And so I called the same landlady and she 
dosed me with hot salt water—and, well ! 


[1893 | 





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E. AND HELEN - MRS. PENNELL AND HER SISTER H. J. ROBINS - AT LAON + PEN DRAWING 
MADE WHILE THERE IN 1893 - ANOTHER VERSION OF THIS IS IN FRENCH CATHEDRALS 

















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































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NYU ANS SNA RRR NOR e Lar 


ia a aie Prine 
ee ZZ777”zzz- ANI EES 


Z g * r R 
ZA Ly WS van a 





MONT ST. MICHEL : PEN DRAWING FOR FRENCH CATHEDRALS : IN THE LUXEMBOURG GALLERY 
PARIS : I DID THIS DRAWING IN THE SUMMER OF I900 WHEN OWING TO DIFFICULTIES 
WITH ENGRAVERS AND PRINTERS AND MY BEING IN EUROPE AND THE BOOKS AND MAGA- 
ZINES FOR WHICH THEY WERE MADE PRINTED HERE I USED THE METHODS OF THE EARLY 
ILLUSTRATORS » THE ONLY TIME I EVER ABANDONED MY USUAL WAY OF MAKING PEN 
DRAWINGS THE MODERN WAY +: BUT THE MONT IS A MEDIZAVAL TOWN SO IT WAS APPROPRIATE 











ARES 


— 





DOORWAY ST. TROPHIME AT ARLES - PEN DRAWING 1890 FOR FRENCH CATHEDRALS : IN THE 
LUXEMBOURG GALLERY: PARIS:+ THIS SHOWS MY USUAL HANDLING OF ARCHITECTURAL WORK 


210 


Worse happened in Madrid. I had been 
out to the Escorial in midsummer and it 
was hot; and as the sun went down be- 
hind the mountains, a breeze came up and 
the Spaniards drew their cloaks round 
them. I threw off my coat and vest, and 
in an hour I had malaria and all sorts of 
things. I dragged myself back to Madrid 
and there Timothy Cole, making engrav- 
ings in the Prado, found me and told me 
to leave at once, and I did. I heard after- 
wards that he had come to the station in 
a béret and a flannel shirt and corduroy 
pants and grass slippers to see me off, carry- 
ing, to give me and brace me up, a big 
package of American ‘‘Force’’, which he 
then happened to be living on; and they 
would not let him into the waiting room 
because they thought he was a dynamiter. 
Half dead, I got to Paris, chattering, trem- 
bling, and I ordered a room at the Quai 
d’Orsay Hotel and a fire and all the blan- 
kets I could get—it was July—and a bottle 
of whisky, and I drank that; and the next 
morning I was cured. And if France had 
been dry, I should have been dead. But the 
drawings I made in Spain that summer are 
in Hay’s Cast1z1an Days, and the origi- 
nals in the Chicago Art Institute. 
NS ten years of my life were spent 
in cathedrals—the cathedrals of Italy, 
Spain, Germany, Belgium, as well as the 
cathedrals of England and France—before 
I was done; and if it had not been for the 
War, I never should have finished. I even 
went to wrecked Soissons after the War, 
but one glimpse of that was enough; the 
hoteland the peopleofthe town wereruined 
too, but the tourists, blind and fools, en- 
joyed the rubber-neck rides through the 
“devastated regions.’’ Though the book 
that was made of the cathedrals still sells 
a few copies a year, the “‘public taste”’ 
has changed to photographs and news- 
paper snippets, which reminds me of a 


CHAPTER XXIII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


day when I was drawing at Rouen. I went 
there over and over, and endless people, 
Beardsley among them, came up from 
Dieppe to see me and stay at the Hotel du 
Nord, with its unexpected intimate reve- 
lations, for every window looked into 
everybody else’s room. And Salis came 
down from Paris with his Cuat Norr pic- 
tures and made a fiasco and died. And one 
day I took a perfect American lady to a 
perfect restaurant with a terrace, but she 
said, ‘No, I will never eat with my feet 
in the gutter!’’ And once Whistler came, 
when I was not there. And E. went to all 
the cathedrals first as a holiday, and, sec- 
ond, because she eventually wrote the 
book on the French Churches. But the day 
I refer to, a real British matron walked up 
to me with HicHways aNnD Byways IN 
Normanpy in her hand, open at the fron- 
tispiece. I had illustrated it a year or 
two before, when I saw from a bicycle 
every inch of Normandy, as I have seen 
almost every other department in France. 
And the matron said: ‘‘A-oh! Are you an 
artist? Now, I want to show you some- 
thing here. I bought this book and it’s 
full of drawings by that awful Pennell. I 
know all about him—horrid creature!”’ 
‘IT know him too,”’ said I; ‘‘vile Yankee!”’ 
‘‘Fancy!’’ said she. “‘Just what one would 
think! Well, here, look at this frontis- 
piece! It’s called ‘The Transept, Rouen 
Cathedral.’ Look at your drawing and look 
at this drawing in the book, and look 
at the transept in front of us!’ “‘Shock- 
ing!’’ said I. ‘Id write to THe Times and 
expose the swindler, and to the publishers 
and get my money back.’’ “I will,’’ said 
she. ““Do,”’ said-l; “only,” Taddeqeuman 
she was going in at the transept door, “‘I 
would look onthe other side of the church; 
you might find another transept door on 
that side. The beastly American has a 
habit of getting things in their right 


[1895 } 





i 





THE TRANSEPT AT ROUEN - LITHOGRAPH FROM NATURE + ONE OF THE FIRST DRAWINGS OF 
MODERN TIMES SUCCESSFULLY TRANSFERRED TO THE STONE AND THE ORIGINAL PRESERVED 
THIS WAS DONE BY CHARLES GOULDING ABOUT I905 : HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN NORMANDY 
BY THE REVEREND PERCY DEARMER + WE DID THE WHOLE OF THE COUNTRY ON BICYCLES 


eile 


places.’’ As she went in, the door slammed 
behind her; but she never came out of it 
again. Why do the British always slam 
doors? My door, the door I had drawn, 
was on the other side. 
I COULD go on; but this is enough. If I 
could only, either by writing or draw- 
ing, prove how much I loved and cared 
for thesechurches, these countries, and the 
people in them, it would be something; 
but no one cares for cathedrals or for the 
drawings either. Some of the cathedrals 
—only a few, thank God—are historic 
documents, or my drawings are, but these, 
instead of being shown, are buried some- 


CHAPTER XXIII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


where in the cellars of the Luxembourg 
Gallery in Paris. They were asked for and 
given by me to the French Government, 
and the acknowledgment of what they 
called one of their most important gifts 
was all I got from a Government which 
shies its favors on all who demand or 
grovel or pay for them. It is the same 
thing here. The other day, in the latest 
history of American Graphic Art, I found 
my work in the Cathedrals of Europe un- 
mentioned in the volume. 

tT is all a beautiful memory of a quiet 
I life in a world that passed away in the 
War, the War that has wrecked the world. 





A CHIMERA OF NOTRE DAME - PEN DRAWING 
PRINTED IN THE PALL MALL GAZETTE AND 
AFTERWARDS ISSUED IN A VOLUME THE DEV- 
ILS OF NOTRE DAME BY R. A. M. STEVENSON 


[1895 | 





CHAPTER XXIV: BEARDSLEY:-THE YELLOW BOOK AND 
THE SAVOY: THE BIRTH OF THE YELLOW BOOK: BEARDSLEY 
DISMISSED AS EDITOR: ADVENTURES IN PARIS AND LONDON 
WITH BEARDSLEY - METHOD OF WORK - ILLNESS AND DEATH 








REGENT’S QUADRANT - A PEN DRAWING PUBLISHED IN THE FIRST NUMBER OF THE SAVOY 





NE night, at the Hogarth Club 
in London, Henry Harland and 
Aubrey Beardsley came up to 
me, and Harland said: ‘‘We are 
going to edit a magazine and John Lane 
will publish it.’’ ““Who’s we?” said I. 
“Aubrey and me. I'll do the literary end, 
he'll look after the art.’’ ““Why, you dont 
know anything about editing,”’ said I. 
“Neither of you, not even with me, can 
run a magazine.’’ ‘You will see,’’ they 
said. “‘And what’s more, you are to do 


something for it.’’ And there it was, full 
born, without any details as to expense, 
or advertisers, paper, ink, circulation, pub- 
licity, overhead charges, the only impor- 
tant matters which modern editors think 
about and most modern publishers care 
about, save imitating their rivals more 
cheaply. Harland and Beardsley wanted 
the best art and literary magazine they 
could make, and they had the name and 
the publisher, and now they needed the 
contributors—among them me. I wanted 


[1893 | 


214 


to be the art editor and have Beardsley 
for contributor, but they did not see it 
that way and, after endless discussions 
and an equal or greater number of drinks, 
for nothing decent can be done without 
drink, an inspiring quantity of it, THE 
Yrettow Book was born. It was to be a 
quarterly, and the title was taken from 
the cover, a different design for each issue 
by Beardsley, who made half, if not more, 
of the drawings in the first volume and 
they were the basis and backbone of it all. 
There was some sense in the covers and 
some character, just as there is no sense 
and no character in the covers of most 
magazines. The yellow of the binding was 
a telling note on the bookstands and in 
the bookshops, and it was a book and not 
the hybrid—neither newspaper, magazine 
nor book—that most periodical publica- 
tions are. It was by no means the first at- 
tempt in England at artistic expression in 
book or magazine making by artists and 
literary people, in distinction to publishers 
and editors, or shopkeepers and sweaters, 
which is all many editors and publishers 
are to-day. The first of these art journals 
was Tue Germ, artless though, save for 
its illustrations, and they did not amount 
to much despite the cackle over them. 
The literature was much better, but the 
get-up was hopelessly commonplace. It 
is widely sought for by collectors—so- 
called in America—incited to collect not 
for beauty, excellence of craftsmanship, 
but because the book is rare and, there- 
fore, “‘tink vat it vill pring in de auction 
ven yer has to sell it!’’ If our American 
system of collecting had always been prac- 
tised there would have been no literature 
or art, for the collector of this sort pays 
no attention to his contemporaries, and 
without contemporary work there can be 
no old work. His method of collecting is 
only senseless dealing, with no end or aim 


CHAPTER XXIV - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


but money, the stock exchange and the 
bucket shop applied to art and literature 
both old and new. There were also THE 
Hossy Horsg, more or less founded on the 
Pre-Raphaelites and their beliefs; and Tae 
Dra, founded to boom Messrs. Ricketts 
and Shannon; and Tue Butrerrty, founded 
by Edgar Wilson, which fluttered occa- 
sionally but was mostly in a chrysalis 
state, though it produced Phil May, Sulli- 
van, Max Beerbohm, Edgar Wilson, Hart- 
rick and myself, and published authors 
like Arthur Morrison, though most of 
them were not like him at all. 
T HE YELLOW Book was to contain the 
best of everything that the editors 
knew was the best, and it did, and so was 
an immediate success, though I did not 
believe it would be. The financial side did 
not matter to us so long as John Lane paid 
the contributors—that is, us—and he did. 
But success brought dissension. Every- 
body wanted to be in it, the editors, too, 
wanted to get in with certain people, and 
the end came quickly. Though Beardsley 
kept up the artistic current, the literary 
rivulets ran low. Harland, hunting round 
for more authors, secured Henry James, 
the most distinguished or one of the most 
distinguished of the day, and then asked 
Mrs. Humphry Ward, extremely popular 
in this country, who said she would write 
for the book if she could be shown copies 
of it, because, though she had heard of it, 
she had never seen it. Harland sent her a 
volume and then it was understood that 
she made it a condition before writing, 
that Aubrey Beardsley should be dropped 
as editor. If he was not, she would, through 
her beloved Gladstone, invoke the Public 
Prosecutor, for in one or more drawings 
she—and she alone—found something she 
did not approve of, or rather understand. 
I have lately seen it stated that the pro- 
test came from Sir William Watson. Here 


[1893 | 





BEARDSLEY - MY FIRST MEETING WITH HIM 


was a case for John Lane to decide, and 
he was in America. He was cabled to 
and he cabled back to let Beardsley go; 
and once again the face of British respect- 
ability was washed, and all the contribu- 
tors, decadents they were called, or most 
of them, went too. Harland did not; but 
the magazine thereafter was seen on every 
middle-class drawing-room table in Eng- 
land, and that was the end of it. Keats 
and Beardsley did more for the British 
than any authors or artists of modern 
times and both were really killed by 
their critical compatriots. When Beards- 
ley illustrated Oscar Wilde’s SatomE— 
another scandal in Bloomsbury, though 
artists knew this work to be a master- 
piece—his drawings or the prints were 
edited, those in the last volume of Tue 
Ye ttow Boox suppressed. Then there came 
sad, hard days for Beardsley, who was ill, 
stranded, almost bankrupt. He had to de- 
pend on other publishers, Nichols at one 
time, and at another, Smithers, who is- 
sued Tue Rape or THE Lock, his best book. 
About this time Beardsley was seeing a 
good deal of Arthur Symons, and Tue 
Savoy, also published by Smithers, was 
the result, and I was in that, too, with 
both an article on ‘‘English Illustration 
of the Sixties,’’ and my own drawings. 
Tue Savoy died soon, though Beardsley 
did some of his finest work for it. He was 
now a skilled craftsman. But not even his 
designs, dinners, and Henry James could 
keep it going, for decadence, which in it 
had meant good, even great work, dis- 
appeared in the Wilde débacle. Good work 
is always hated by the bourgeois and the 
middle class, and the whole Anglo-Saxon 
race, which loves banalities, boorishness 
and buncombe. Tue Dairy Matz and Trr- 
Brts took its place, and we have now 
sunk to The Ladies’ Mothers’ Home Satur- 
day National Weekly Journalism, cubism, 


ais 


futurism, expressionism, the radio, the 
movies, the comics, the delight of the vul- 
gar Ametricun-speaking world, which wal- 
lows in the slough of filth it has buried 
itself in and is happy. All I want is in 
this book to make some record of what 
was done when the world was worth liv- 
ing in, as it was in those days. 
A s to Beardsley, it has oftenbeen said that 
I made him, though at the present mo- 
ment historians and critics ignore me—or 
try to. I did nothing of the sort; he had 
made himself before I met him; andI met 
him in this way: One day in the early Nine- 
ties, Robbie—Robert—Ross, executor and 
biographer of Oscar Wilde, looked me up 
and said: ‘‘I have found an artist, at least 
I think I have, and I should like you to 
see him. Would you care to come to a din- 
ner 1 am going to give in a few days and 
meet this artist—Beardsley?’’ I went and, 
so far as I remember, George Moore was 
there—he got in somehow—and Justin 
McCarthy and Lewis Hind, and Gleeson 
White, editor of Tur Stupio that was to be. 
And there came into the room where we all 
were a boy,a child, and this was Beards- 
ley. He looked less an artist than a swell. 
He carried a portfolio, not an artist's port- 
folio, but something a young lady would 
carry, prettily decorated on the sides. He 
always had the little portfolio under his 
atm when he, alone or with his sister 
Mabel, dropped in at our place in Buck- 
ingham Street. For somehow he took to 
us. In the portfolio that evening were a 
number of drawings which he wanted to 
show. They were not his earliest, because 
like all geniuses Beardsley’s early work 
wasnt worth a cent, but those he was 
then making for the Morte p’ARTHOUR. 
I was very much struck by one of men in 
armor, a headpiece combining in a remark- 
able manner the work of the Pre-Raphael- 
ites and that of modern designers. When 


[1893 } 


216 


he had shown the drawings and we had 
praised them, he told us Burne-Jones liked 
them, which rather staggered us, and Mor- 
ris also, though he was reproducing them 
by process instead of by wood cutting. 
After seeing the drawings, I agreed to 
write an article on Beardsley for the first 
number of Tur Srupio, about to be pub- 
lished. It was an intensely hedging article, 
all I said being that Beardsley might do 
something if he went on and did some- 
thing, and to my great surprise he did. 
But with the publication of the Morte, 
the world admitted that an artist was 
born. Later he became much more in- 
fluenced by the Japanese, by their line, 
than by the Pre-Raphaclites. His designs, 
mostly, were in pen and ink, and his 
work in that medium has set a standard 
for his imitators everywhere. In it there 
was, and is, character, observation, tech- 
nique that no one has been able to sur- 
pass, though many in many lands, have 
tried. But Beardsley knew and saw and 
did and succeeded far better than any one. 
NsTEAD Of being satisfied with clichés 
] or repetitions, Beardsley never repeated 
himself, or stupidly imitated, as most of 
the great and good illustrators do; he 
did something different each time. There 
were posters for John Lane, Fisher Unwin, 
Tuer YEeLLow Book, theaters. A very few 
designs were in color but they were not 
used until some time after. A number of 
title pages, end papers, and head and tail 
pieces for the Bon Mor and Key Norte 
series, published by Lane, date from this 
time. His fame spread to the cheap mag- 
azines; his drawings were printed in them 
because they were talked about in THE 
Yettow Book. They even appeared ‘with 
‘he and she pictures,’’ photographs and 
as advertisements. 
B EFORE long I got to know Beardsley as 
well as you get to know most people. 


CHAPTER XXIV - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


More than once we went to Paris together. 
We were there in 1893 when I was spend- 
ing my days on the towers of Notre Dame, 
and Beardsley climbed up with me two or 
three times. That was about all we saw of 
each other by day, but he made me into a 
gargoyle in the place of Méryon’s Stryge, 
and the drawing was printed first in THE 
Patt Matt Bupecert. It was then we went 
to the palaces and gardens of St. Cloud 
and St. Germain and Versailles. These he 
got not on paper but in his head, but they 
did not come out until two or three years 
later in THe Rape or THE Lock. We stopped 
at a hotel, well known to artists in those 
days, with an incomprehensible name, the 
Hotel du Portugal et de l'Univers. It was 
as incomprehensible and insignificant as 
its name was magnificent. At the entrance 
all guests were appropriated by the con- 
cierge. I remember Beardsley was rather 
shocked when he had to undergo being 
properly embraced by her. The New Salon 
was still really new, and Stevenson, Mac- 
Coll, Robbie Ross, Whibley, Furze and 
Harland were all in Paris, most of us 
doing it for our papers. At the Vernissage 
Beardsley wore his little straw hat, a light 
suit and a golden tie, and the English 
stared and wondered—those who came in 
caps and hob nails, as they never would 
dare at the Royal Academy. There we saw 
Madame Aman Jean, the first woman of 
modern times who showed the world how 
the ladies of the Middle Ages hid their 
ears in their hair, and all the other celeb- 
rities—the President, whoever he was, of 
the Republic, or the Salon, and Carolus, 
Whistler, Harpignies, and the other chers 
Maitres, and people climbed on chairs to 
see Zola walk by, and actually looked at 
the pictures between times. The crowd then 
came to see the pictures. To-day they come 
to see each other, and drink tea, but in 
those days their interest was in the ex- 


[1893 | 





BEARDSLEY - PLAY IN AND AROUND PARIS 


hibits, and the celebrities were an inter- 
lude in the restaurant, as they filed in for 
lunch, which was not a business man’s 
cold-storage gobble. Business men of our 
sort did not then exist in Paris or even here. 

NE day that year a professor of archi- 
O tecture came over and we gave hima 
lunch. The place we chose was outside the 
Palais Royal. The architect wore a top 
hat and a frock coat, and we were all 
dressed for a formal affair. R. A. M. Ste- 
venson sat at the head of the table, and 
the table was in the gutter. It was ordi- 
narily used by cabmen quietly—but we 
had such a crowd around us noisily in five 
minutes that we were moved by the police 
and the table taken away. Then we drove 
to Lapérouse to finish the lunch. Another 
day we went to Versailles, and near the 
little lake opposite the Trianon, we all lay 
down on the grass. There were ladies in the 
party. Mrs. Pennell did not come. She was 
in Paris. I left her in the hotel to work 
while we played. As we lay and loafed, there 
arose in the background a whole troop of 
real Americans from the western world, 
out with their keeper. And he said, ‘‘Naw, 
friends, if you look here, you will see the 
Tri-I-an, yon.’’ And Furze, the painter, 
who was a big man, stood up and said, 
“Friends, I’m going in swimming.’ “Me, 
too,’ said the ladies. All the Middle-West 
gents started staring and the Middle-West 
ladies all promptly got out their kodaks. 
Furze took off his coat and his vest, and 
had gone further before the keeper could 
drive his crowd away. Things became so in- 
timate that the intelligent tourists thought 
it was no place for them and left, and then 
we invited our souls for the rest of the 
afternoon. In the evening we started home 
and, after singing all sorts of patriotic 
songs up and down the station platform, 
we were shut in the waiting room by the 
shocked station master.On the train from 


217 


Versailles to Paris we took the top of 
one of the funny little double-deck trams 
with seats on the roof right in the smoke, 
and it is a pity we could not have been 
photographed when we arrived at the 
Gare St. Lazare as black as real nigger 
minstrels. Another day we went by mouche 
to St. Cloud, and our straw hats blew off, 
and we tied handkerchiefs around our 
heads, and we joined a wedding party, 
and posed as gods and goddesses on the 
empty pedestals of the park, and even then 
were not photographed, though all of us 
were celebrities, and not the nonentities 
who grin for the Sunday papers. Thus 
much of our time was passed, but all the 
while we worked, looking at pictures, 
writing about them, talking about them, 
trying to make them. 
O NE night I took Beardsley, or he took 
me, to the Opera, to hear LoHENGRIN. 
We sat on the side of the parquet, on the 
steps. Beardsley, without drawing a line, 
studied the whole thing, and evolved ‘“The 
Wagnerians,’’ first printed in THz YELLow 
Book, one of the designs to which he owed 
his great reputation, later republished in 
Le Courier Frangals, as a patent medi- 
cine advertisement, and finally sold at the 
Hotel Drouot for the enormous sum of 
fifty francs, and now in an American col- 
lection. After the opera we crossed the 
street to the Grand Café, and as we were 
walking by the terrace, we saw Whistler 
with Arthur Jerome Eddy, considered quite 
correct by Whistler, who agreed to paint 
his portrait and so, he said, make Chicago, 
which was Eddy’s town, remembered. 
Whistler noticed Beardsley, but that was 
all, and then Beardsley went home, and 
Whistler said to me: ‘What do you make 
of that young thing? He has hairs on his 
head, hairs on his hands, in his ears—all 
over.’’ ‘‘You dont know him,’’ I said. 
“Do you mind my bringing him to your 


[1893 } 


{ 
i 
: 
; 
{ 
: 
: 





THE DEVIL OF NOTRE DAME: LE STRYGE + ETCHED IN 1893 ON THE TOWERS 
OF NOTRE DAME + FROM THE PROOF IN THE COLLECTION OF MRS. W. H. FOX 








A DEVIL OF NOTRE DAME : PORTRAIT BY AUBREY BEARDSLEY OF 
JOSEPH PENNELL ETCHING ON THE TOWER - MADE WHILE WE 
WERE IN PARIS TOGETHER - FROM THE DRAWING LOANED BY 
THE LATE JOHN LANE «: PRINTED IN EARLY WORK OF BEARDSLEY 


220 


place Sunday afternoon?’’ He answered, 
“T dont know about that.’’ But finally, 
after much talk, I got Whistler to let me 
bring Beardsley to his beautiful garden in 
the Rue du Bac. That afternoon I dont 
think Whistler cared for him at all. Puvis 
de Chavannes and Mallarmé, who were 
there, showed much more interest and 
Puvis asked Beardsley to his studio. There 
was an Englishman, too, with pots of 
money—something we were not blessed 
with, and he invited the Whistlers and us 
to dinner at a café in the Champs Elysées. 
We went, but Whistler never appeared, a 
way he had sometimes. At dinner Beards- 
ley worked out a drawing of Whistler. 
He offered 1t to me, Walter Sickert got it, 
said he left it in a cab, and now it has 
turned up in a volume of UNpusBiisHED 
Drawincs By AuBrEyY BEarDsLeyY. 
E had other adventures in Paris. We 
v4 went one night to Montmartre, to 
one of those places run not for the benefit 
of intelligent tourists, but for artists, by 
artists. To get back, we climbed in, on, 
around, on top of a four-wheeled closed 
cab, about ten of us, and as we came down 
the hill of Montmartre, a steep street, 
there was a crash and the bottom fell out. 
The horses went faster and faster. Those 
of us nearest the bottom fell out, too, and 
those who could put their feet on the 
ground ran inside the bottomless cab and 
kept up as best they could with the rock- 
ing upper works. Finally the cocher steered 
the vehicle into a solid wall, and it stopped 
with another crash. We untangled all who 
were on top, and all who were in the bot- 
tom crawled through, and the few still 
left on the seats climbed from the inside, 
and we stood around until Harland,-who 
was a generous and beneficent person, said, 
“Oh, the poor cocher! We must help him; 
he may get sacked and fined besides.’’ So 
Harland took the coachman’s leather top 


CHAPTER XXIV - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


hat and passed it round, and we contrib- 
uted. The coins fell with a clang into 
the hat, several five-franc pieces among 
them. All this time a sergent de ville was 
watching the whole proceeding. Finally 
when the coachman realized that no more 
contributions were coming, he took his 
hat, emptied the contents in his pockets, 
said “‘Merci,’’ and went his merry way. 
Then the policeman spoke. ‘‘It seems 
strange that gentlemen such as you, who 
seem to be acquainted with the ways of 
Paris, and who seem to understand things 
here, shouldnt know that the coachman 
was insured. Now he has not only earned 
his day’s pay, but twenty-five or fifty 
francs besides.”’ 
B EARDSLEY made a place for himself 

not only by drawing, but by writing. 
He used both talents in illustrating his 
romance UNDER THE Hit. His knowledge 
of old French as well as modern was great, 
and he is said to have been able to help 
and correct Andrew Lang in the use of it. 
Besides this, he had commenced as a musi- 
cian and,with Mabel, his sister, gave con- 
certs in his very youthful years. As he was 
cager to go everywhere by day, he usually 
worked by night. His studio was the draw- 
ing room of his house near St. George’s 
Square, Pimlico, where he drew by candle- 
light. He began his drawing by making 
the pen lines which bound it, two or three 
of them sometimes, a pencil sketch in the 
space within and then he went at the sub- 
ject in ink. He never depended on a model, 
he only attended an art school a few weeks. 
He was an artist, and could do what he 
wanted—that was all. He drank in every 
drop of the beauty of all the ages—the 
costumes of fair ladies, the dignity of 
parks, the grotesqueness of dwarfs, the 
swagger of gallants. 3 

Is master work was Tue Raps OF THE 
lial Lock. He brought thedrawings tomy 


[1893 } 





BEAKDSLEY - IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH 


place one evening. He had not seen Whis- 
tler in a long time, for he usually came to 
me when he thought Whistler would not 
be there. But this time Whistler was with 
us. Beardsley brought the drawings in 
his ornate portfolio, wearing his yellow 
tie, his gray suit, his little, very little, 
straw hat fitted just on the top of his 
head, and said: ‘I want to show you what 
Ihave done.”’ He did not speak to Whis- 
tler at all. Whistler sat at one end of the 
lounge and [at the other. Beardsley walked 
up and down between us, and brought 
out and handed me one drawing after an- 
other, and Whistler took them one after 
another, and looked at them. And when 
Whistler had seen them all, he looked at 
Beardsley and said, “Aubrey, you know I 
never thought much of you, but I was alto- 
gether wrong. Youarea very great artist.”’ 
That was the kind of man Whistler was 
and none but his friends knew it really. 

NE Christmas 

we went, with 
Whistler and the 
Fisher Unwins, to 
Bournemouth, 
where Beardsley was 
staying, but the end 
was coming and he 
was too ill to see 
us. He spent that 
spring in Paris, all 
the time drawing, 
afraid to lose a day. 
Like Whistler, he 
was always work- 
ing, always playing 
against death. In 
July, Mrs. Pennell, 
Whistler, Boldini, 
Kennedyand I cross- 





aati 


ed over from London to Dieppe, where 
Beardsley had gone for the summer. We 
had forgotten the number of his lodg- 
ing, and we gaily passed without knowing 
it. He was at the window, watching for us 
and thought we did not want to see him, 
but I found out a little later where he was 
and we hurried back and explained. He 
had begun the illustrations for VoLPoNE 
and had made the frontispiece and one or 
more drawings, besides the initial letters, 
and he showed them to me. There was a 
certain richness he never got before, and 
this was the last work of his life. In the 
autumn, with his mother, he went south, 
stopping in Paris, to Mentone. From there 
he wrote me that he was ‘‘passing through 
the Valley of the Shadow of Death.”’ It 
was the last letter I had from him and, 
with his others, his books dedicated and 
inscribed to me, and the drawings he gave 
me, all went in the cursed, useless, waste- 
ful War. All I now 
have is the photo- 
graph of this paint- 
ing sent me by his 
mother with her 
love. At Mentone 
he had not long to 
wait. In his hotel 
room, surrounded 
by his booksand the 
drawings he loved, 
he died like Keats in 
a foreign land, but 
the name and fame 
will live of Keats 
and Beardsley, two 
boys whom the 
Gods loved and took 
while they both 


were very young. 


AUBREY BEARDSLEY * FROM THE PAINTING 
BY M. JACQUES BLANCHE NOW SHOWN IN 
THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY LONDON 


{ 1898 } 


CHAPTER XXV: GETTING INTORUSSIA: ISTART WITH 
A WORTHLESS PASSPORT - AT BRODY - I ENTER RUSSIA - GO 
TO KIEV - SEE THE LIVING DEATH AND OTHER SIGHTS 


‘ 
NS 


\y fl | a) f ha 
NS Aa 
Vy Cael 
ah de Nya PED) ah WA 
\ : WN b 





STREET IN BRODY -: PEN DRAWING PUBLISHED IN THE JEW AT HOME: W. HEINEMANN LONDON 


NE day in the summer of 1891, 

while E. and I were riding our 

bicycles from Berlin to Buda- 

pest, doing the articles for THE 
InLustraATED Lonpon News on our ride 
which I have referred to, we were lunch- 
ing at the Friederichshof in Berlin, when 
up turned Harold Frederic, full of Jews. 
Except for the vague, unformulated dis- 
like to a Jew felt instinctively by every 
properly constituted person of my genera- 
tion and race, I had never thought of Jews 
as Jews, outside the Bible, except as a 
peculiar people, for I have friends among 
Hebrews. But the persecuted, down- 
trodden Bolshevist, Tartar, Polish, Slo- 


vac, Russian, world-wrecking, American- 
coddled-to Jews I object to with reason, 
and so do the genuine old Jews—Hebrews 
—who know them. Frederic was all for 
the Russian Jews. They were admirable, 
they were martyrs; they were persecuted. 
He would avenge them in ScriBneEr’s and 
Tue New York Times, and the Rothschilds 
and Goldschmidts were back of him—the 
latter a mere incident. And I must come 
along and we would do an article on 
Kiev, the holiest place in Russia, and an- 
other on Berditchev where, it appeared, 
there was a bigger horse fair and more 
Jews than anywhere else for its size in 
creation; and we talked Russian Jew with 


[1891] 





GETTING INTO RUSSIA - I BEGIN TO MEET THE RUSSIAN JEWS 


German Jews for a day or so, over lunches, 
with champagne paid for by the real Jews. 
And Jews began to interest me, and when 
we got to Budapest, we were right in the 
midst of them. There was Vambéry, a Jew, 
sitting on the fence; Hirsch, a Jew, ready 
to save them via Argentina and New Jer- 
sey, so long as they were kept out of Hun- 
gary, and by doing so he was to be white- 
washed for his work on the Hungarian 
railways; and Pulski, though he declared 
that, after three generations, a Russian 
Jew becomes a good citizen. “‘But what 
of the previous generations you have to 
endure?’ he always added. The Jews 
were ever their own greatest enemies. 
And then the Russian Jews, he was al- 
ways telling us, were not Hebrews, but 
Tartars who, at some remote period, had 
become converted, the lot of them, in 
South Russia and Mesopotamia by mis- 
sionaries sent out—the only time—from 
Palestine. And everybody, from peasant 
to prince, was against them; yet Jews 
they were, all the same, Jews by religion, 
but not Hebrews by descent, and the 
Russians would not keep them and the 
Hungarians would not have them, so 
they were to be shipped anywhere they 
could be sent—and that was the way 
we got them. The real Jews—Hebrews 
of Europe paid the bill. On the way 
down I had seen at Carlsbad some appall- 
ing caricatures of the human race, crea- 
tures in antiquated stovepipe hats, or 
large slouches, or furry caps, and short- 
cropped hair, with a long ringlet hung 
in front of each ear, a straggling beard, 
a greasy, dirty, ill-fitting long coat or 
gabardine, in the sleeves of which they 
hid their hands decorated with nails like 
claws, as you could see when they came 
out to blow their noses, without hand- 
kerchiefs; under their arms were bat- 
tered umbrellas; their trousers frayed; 


222 


and many slouched in slippers, and most 
of the rest wore boots. We were told 
during the hour or so we stayed there 
that they were rich Polish Jews, drinking 
the waters. External application of water, 
it seemed to me, would have been more 
useful. There was no Poland then, no lit- 
tle nations, no little peoples to ruin and 
wreck the world, as they have done. We 
found too, in the Judengasse of Vienna, 
the same types. But it was not till we got 
to Transylvania and saw and heard that 
the entire country was in the clutch of 
these creatures, that they controlled the 
liquor business, owned the peasants, and 
were beginning to own the land; not till 
we saw that the quarter of every town 
they were in was sunk in the dirt, decay, 
and grime of the old Ghetto; not till we 
heard that the peasants were ousted from 
their markets and their arts and crafts 
supplanted by machine-made trash; not 
till we saw that though the peasants not 
in their clutches lived in their own houses 
covered with flowers, each in its own 
walled enclosure, the Jews swarmed like 
rats in the filthiest houses, or under them, 
in the center of the towns—it was not till 
then that we heard that the Jew of Russia, 
Hungary, Galicia, Slovakia, and Polakia is 
a blight and a plague. And we felt that 
if the prejudice against them ts strong, if 
they have been persecuted and shunned, it 
is largely their own fault. Now America has 
got them, or rather the Polish, Russian and 
Greek Jews have got us, for we are cowards 
and afraid of them. We are the worst cow- 
ards in the world—and we call ourselves up- 
lifters, idealists, altruists—only we do not 
know that real Jews, American Hebrews 
who do know them, dread their coming 
here. I do not believe that any sane per- 
son who has seen the Jews in Russia and 
Hungary, and most of those who come to 
America, can think anything else about 


[1891] 


224 


them; and, as a Brooklyn policeman said 
to me one day, as I was drawing in Judea 
—at the end of the Passover—which are 
the local names for New York and the 
Manhattan Bridge—‘'I kin stan’ any- 
thing but them Juce. What they wants is 
a bath, and in the biggest bathtub God 
A’mity’s ever made—der Atlantic Ocean; 
and some day we'll get ’em in an’ then 
yer bet ya life, there'll be few’ll get out, 
and only on the other side. Der biggest 
Yeudenhetze of Russia wont be in it, nope! 
Sure!’’ In fact, we want, in our treat- 
ment of Tartar Jews, most aliens, eleva- 
tors and uplifters, to go back to the great 
Dark Ages. We are now dictated to by 
fools, fanatics and females. The life of 
the Russian, Polish, Rumanian Jew, inall 
its filth and degradation, can be seen in 
“this great Jewish City,” as Zangwill 
kindly called New York, and all Amer- 
ica, but I, was afraid to answer him. I 
told him he ought to be sent back at na- 
tional expense, then his play failed and 
he ran away to what he calls home, but 
no Englishman would call him a Briton. 
I WAITED as long as possible for the vint- 

age in Transylvania, and it was only a 
day or so before I had to start that I went 
to the United States Consul in Budapest 
and asked him about getting my passport 
viséed for Russia. He looked at it and said 
it was no longer good. I asked why; he 
told me because it was more than two 
years old. This rule I did not know, as it 
was not stated on the paper. I asked the 
Consul to get me a new one by telegraph 
from the American Minister at Vienna. 
He said it was not possible, and he doubted 
if the Minister would issue another. So I 
told him the story of this passport, how 
I had asked for it in London a few years 
before, and the Minister had refused me. 
I told the Minister that it did not matter, 
for I should go to Cook’s Tourist Office 


CHAPTER XXV - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


and get a British one—they were passport 
agents—and he said all right, that did 
not matter either. And then I told him 
that, as soonas I had got it, I should give 
a lunch to all the American newspaper 
correspondents in London and tell them 
the story. The passport was handed me, 
signed and sealed, before I left the Lega- 
tion. I have found, or used to find, Amer- 
ican diplomats more ready to be polite to 
foreign refugees or renegades than to those 
citizens whose ancestors have been Amer- 
icans for centuries. But it appeared that 
a passport wanted abroad was only granted 
on personal application at an Embassy or 
Legation—such is American red tape— 
and there was not any time for me to go 
to Vienna. To get into Russia, a passport 
must be viséed, for without a visé, it is 
worthless. Outside Russia and Turkey one 
could then travel freely without any pa- 
pers. Now, that Consul was a man of ideas 
and, knowing the importance of the case, 
he said, ‘‘The Russian Consul in Pest is a 
friend of mine. I will give you a letter of 
introduction to him; and if you, when you 
call, choose to ask him to visé the pass- 
port and he does so, though I wash my 
hands of the affair, you can go to Russia. 
But, mind, if you get into trouble there, 
and you most likely will get into trouble, 
you can claim no protection from the 
United States.’’ We dont have Consuls like 
that, I fear, any longer to represent us 
abroad—not since we have become a world 
power. The Russian Consul was charming 
and viséed the paper at once. I also was 
furnished with official documents from 
the Hungarian Government to the author- 
ities at Brody on the Russian frontier, 
where the customs bar between the two 
countries crosses the streets. As soon as I 
got there and commenced to draw, I was 
arrested. And as the officials would talk 
nothing but Polish or Slovak or Russian, 


{ 1891 } 













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A GENTLEMAN OF BRODY + PEN DRAWING IN THE POSSESSION OF MR. POULTNEY BIGELOW 





GETTING INTO RUSSIA - KIEV - THE MONASTERY AND PILGRIMS 


and could not read Hungarian or Amer- 
ican, and insisted on my taking my hat 
off when I came into their mighty pres- 
ence, though they kept theirs on, and as 
I forgot more than once to do so, for there 
was no place to put my hat but on my 
head, I came near being sent back to 
Budapest. But finally, I not only ar- 
ranged matters with them but made a 
number of drawings in this big Jew town 
where the Russian Jews who have es- 
caped wait for their ringlets, cut off by a 
cruel government, to grow again, mean- 
while “‘shaving”’ the new arrivals. 

tT the Russian side of the frontier—the 
A frontier station was a little way out 
of the town and we took the train there 
—my passport was examined, my bag- 
gage was examined, and I was examined. 
As everything seemed in order, I was 
allowed to goon, and went slowly on in 
the Pullman, the only excitement being 
that the night before I got to Kiev some 
tremendous Russian official boarded the 
train—his greatness required an entire 
compartment—and so the Russian lady 
who was in the one next me was put, in 
her nightgown, into mine. And he was 
given hers. I can only say she conducted 
herself with perfect propriety and not as 
in a Russian novel, though she did smoke 
big black cigars. 
A T Kiev, after I had given up my pass- 

port to the hotel porter and been 
given a room, I went to the monastery I 
had come to draw. It stands high above 
the city within the walls of the fortress. 
Long before I got to the gate I saw the 
pilgrims, on their last day’s tramp to It, 
and I saw how fine it all was. One of the 
great festivals of autumn was about to 
be held and from all over Russia the 
pilgrims had come. Some, from Siberia, 
I was told, had been eighteen months 
on the way. They were in rags. They car- 


227 


ried, not scrip but tea kettles; they all 
had staves or clubs. Some were penniless; 
but none were tramps or tourists. At the 
gate many fell on their faces and crawled 
all the way to the church. I walked, and 
then asked if I could find a monk who 
could speak English, as I was told at the 
hotel I should. The brother sent me, an 
Irishman, was charming, said the life was 
holy, and at once went to ask permission 
for me to draw, which he assured me be- 
fore he went would be refused—and it 
was. But I had provided myself with 
tiny sketch blocks and bits of paper, and 
on these I made notes of what I could not 
remember. I can never forget the crowd 
of silent pilgrims, stretched upon the 
church floor, waiting for the service; the 
monks, each like a Christ in his stall be- 
neath the tiny gem-like windows of the 
dark interior; the great lamps, the glitter- 
ing icons in the gloom, and the great gold 
gates reaching to the roof, on which the 
only light from the jeweled upper windows 
fell. All day I stayed there and in the other 
churches of the city, and when the eve- 
ning service came and the choir chanted at 
their great reading desks and the responses 
came back from the boys in the dome, it 
was too beautiful for this world; and now 
it is gone. Next day was the feast, and I 
was early at the church. It was crowded; 
the pilgrims, ragged and smelly, lay prone 
upon the floor, and among them, erect 
and motionless, in dazzling uniforms and 
court dress, stood the generals and ofh- 
cials. Again there was even more beauti- 
ful chanting and, at last, the great gates 
slowly opened and generals and officials 
and I fell on our knees, and, one by one, 
curtains of blue, of rose, of gold, were 
wafted aside amid cloud masses of incense 
that filled the cathedral, the holiest in 
Russia. In the midst, for a moment, in 
glory, was the Metropolitan, who blessed 


[ 189: | 


228 


us. Then the curtains were slowly wafted 
back, the gates closed, the chanting ceased ; 
it was over. But as I looked, a great stone 
in the floor was rolled away and leading 
downward was a flight of steps. One by 
one, the worshippers near descended and, 
as I too was near, I went with them. The 
stairs ended in a small crypt, lighter than 
the church above. In the center, on a 
great stone slab, covered with tapestry, 
lay a richly robed Metropolitan, wearing 
his crown, holding an icon. He was very 
still. By his side, reading a book, also on 
the slab, was seated a monk, who soon 
was brought a plate of food by other 
monks. He moved slightly and as he 
moved there was a clanking and I saw 
they were chained together; and then I 
was touched and motioned to rise from 
my knees and leave to make room for 
others descending the stairs. And by dark 
passages, through horrid catacombs filled 








mA, 
peered it #1 
Ff 
= | 


CHAPTER XXV - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


with dead monks in their robes, chained 
to the walls till they moulder to dust, I 
came out. When that night I told the Brit- 
ish Consul what I had seen, he gasped 
and said, ‘‘My God, you have seen it! It 
is the living death! You have seen what 
we have only heard of. The live monk 
chained to the dead priest will stay with 
him until he too dies. That place is only 
opened once a year.”’ 

ays I spent in the churches, in the 

market, on the river bank. I saw 
the pilgrims, coming on great boats or 
being ferried over, climb the steep bluff 
on the top of which the convent stands, 
topped by its green and gold domes, a 
landmark that glitters from afar. In the 
town I saw half-shaven prisoners chained 
together, driven through the streets by © 
armed men. I lunched in gorgeous cafés, 
filled with glittering officers and beautt- 
ful ladies. I bought rich furs in the great 


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MARKET AT BRODY - PEN DRAWING FROM HOTEL WINDOW - PUBLISHED IN THE JEW AT HOME 


[1891 } 





GETTING INTO RUSSIA - AND MAKING READY TO LEAVE IT 


fur market. I saw mounted Cossacks gal- 
lop with swords drawn and leveled lances 
through a wide avenue, filled with crowds, 
and I could get no explanation from the 
people into whose house I rushed before 
they slammed and bolted the door. Isaw 
Jews beaten and driven to the railway 
station, and when I came up on the train 
at midnight, I heard wailing and I saw 
on the platform, before I was pushed back 
again into the car, a crowd of prisoners, 
off, I suppose, to Siberia, though many 
were Jews. I saw a great military funeral 













229 


in the fortress church, and I saw, though 
I hardly dared to draw it, the beauty of 
the town piling up on the river bank. I 
saw the starving, penniless pilgrims fed. 
I made a number of sketches, and for the 
first and almost the last time, a number of 
photographs, using a kodak, then a new 
toy. But Harold Frederic never turned up. 
Nothing I ever saw in my life approached 
the glory of the midnight Mass or the 
mystery of the living death. I had seen 
them and I made ready for Berditchev. 
But ofthenextadventureI had nowarning. 





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IN THE PARK + BRODY -: CITIZENS TAKING THE AIR + PUBLISHED IN THE JEW AT HOME 1892. 


[ 1891 | 


CHAPTER XXVI: THROWN OUT OF RUSSIA :- I GO TO 
BERDITCHEV - ARRESTED - DETAINED IN THE CITY - THE SPY 





EXPELLED FROM RUSSIA - JOSEPH CONRAD’S BIRTHPLACE 





EVENING SERVICE IN A SYNAGOGUE : BERDITCHEV ‘SEEN THROUGH A WINDOW: PEN DRAWING 
OWNED BY D.S. MACCOLL - PUBLISHED IN THE JEW AT HOME : W. HEINEMANN LONDON 1892 


FTER some days in Kiev, I found 

out that if I wanted to see the 

fair at Berditchey I must go 

there at once. I went with a 
letter from the British Consul—there was 
no American representative in the city— 
to the Governor-General, to ask permis- 
sion to go. This the Consul said was nec- 
essary. I did not tell him my passport was 
worthless. With firm but polite frankness, 
the Governor-General told me I could not 
go. Incidentally, the sentry at his door 
begged a ruble from me before he would 
let me approach it. I started as soon as I 
could get my passport viséed by the hotel 
porter, your passport being taken by that 


functionary when you arrive at a Russian 
hotel and only given back when you 
leave it, or that used to be the custom. 
Eighteen hours of steppe, pine forest and 
morass succeeding morass, pine forest and 
steppe were only relieved by the Russian 
ladies smoking big black cigars and the 
long stops at the excellent railway res- 
taurants, where there was time to dine, 
but if the Russian trains ran as much as 
they stand still, they would arrive sooner. 
When the train stopped, a muddy, rutty 
track led to a copper dome on the hori- 
zon. Crowds were at every station—Jews, 
peasants, soldiers—and the most charm- 
ing sight was to see great, bearded, dec- 


[1891 | 





THROWN OUT OF RUSSIA - I AM SUSPECTED AND ARRESTED 


orated officers meet and kiss with tears. 
Towards evening of the next day at a 
station, I too took a droshky and with 
others raced across the fields to the dis- 
tant town of Berditchev in which I found 
there was a decent hotel. After dinner I 
walked out to the bazaar crowded with 
Jews and flaring with lights. I went into 
a synagogue. It was the eve of some feast, 
and the fur-capped or top-hatted figures, 
covered with prayer robes, reading from 
scrolls and tablets, praying and chanting, 
were unforgetable. As soon as I got back 
to the hotel I put it all down, though I 
made notes through the open iron-barred 
windows. This drawing even Doctor Mac- 
Coll, the arbiter of British taste, was good 
enough to approve of, and I gave it to 
him when he had the sense to appreciate 
me. It used to hang on his walls, and he 
gave me one of his water colors in ex- 
change, which used, before the War, to 
hang in our rooms. I saw other things 
that night—Russians driving chained Jews 
through the streets and Jews baiting a 
mad Russian, half naked in the cold. 
EXT morning I went to the market 
N and started a big drawing of it. I 
had not been at work an hour when a 
Jew came to me and told me, in French, 
I must come with him. He took me toa 
carriage which had drawn up with three 
horses and two mounted Cossacks. Away 
we went, stared at by the Jews, who did 
not dare to form a crowd. We stopped after 
a short drive, at the office of the Chief of 
Police, I found out, and there were all my 
things which had been brought from the 
hotel. I was very contemptuously asked 
by the Jew what I was doing and why I 
had come to Berditchev. All my things 
were examined, and the drawings were 
seen to be only sketches of Kiev, pilgrims 
and Jews, and dismissed as worthless, or 
with a laugh because they were true. I had 


231 


the kodak with me, as I knew from ex- 
perience in Hungary that the Jews would 
not, if they could help it, pose even for 
money, or only for big money. They will 
do anything for that, as we now do. The 
negatives, I was told, must be developed, 
and in the carriage, but alone, I was sent to 
a photographer. Now, among these films 
I knew were some taken in the fortress at 
Kiev, as the monastery is within it, and 
probably I had, in snapping a pilgrim or 
a monk, taken a bastion as well, as the 
ridiculous machine will do. But the pho- 
tographer, who also talked French, was 
human, and whenever anything that looked 
like a fort was developed, we destroyed it. 
When the prints were made, the Chief of 
Police found them quite harmless. I sup- 
posed I could go when I wanted, so I went 
on drawing for several days, waiting for 
the great fair to be held in about a week. 
I made several drawings, but wherever I 
went, I was followed either by Cossacks 
or the Jew who had arrested me. As I was 
getting tired of this, I went myself to the 
Chief of Police and asked him what was 
the matter. He told meat once that I was 
in Berditchev without permission, which 
was no news. I asked him if I could return 
to Kiev and get it. He said yes. I asked 
when the trains went. He knew nothing 
of the trains, but if I wanted to go, I could 
go with a chain round my leg, on foot, es- 
corted by four Cossacks, and it would take 
fifteen days, and I must pay all their ex- 
penses and my own. Then he ended by say- 
ing that he did not talk French, which he 
had spoken all the while, and addressed 
his questions to me through the Jew who 
was with him who began to speak fluent 
Whitechapel Cockney, which he used on 
me and then translated to the Chief. I 
went back to the hotel to find the land- 
lord in tears. His hotel would be ruined 
because I was in it. I told him nothing 


[189 ] 


Bae 


would give me greater pleasure than to 
get out of it if he would only get my 
passports back viséed. Then he broke into 
fresh tears and fluent Russian. So, to re- 
lieve the landlord and myself, I made up 
my mind to start that night without the 
passport. The only thing that bothered 
me was the beautiful fur coat I had bought 
in Kiev, too heavy to run away in. So, 
after a good dinner, always watched by 
the Jew, I went upstairs to bed, lay down 
dressed, on the warm stove bed in my 
room, for it was cold, and toward mid- 
night, when I knew the train would 
start, got up and looked out the front 
window. In the front street the lamp- 
light shone on two Cossacks, muffled up 
in great coats, resting on their rifles. I 
went to the back window, overlooking 
another street, and there, by the moon- 
light, I saw two more Cossacks, muffled 
up, resting on their rifles. I undressed and 
went to bed on my stove, but I did not 
sleep. I knew for the first time in my life 
what a genuine funk was. In the morn- 
ing I went to the station, always attended, 
and wrote out two telegrams in French, 
one to E. in Budapest and the other to 
the American Ambassador in St. Peters- 
burg, and handed them in. A superior offi- 
cial, who was called, told me in French 
that they did not accept messages in that 
language. I humbly asked him to trans- 
late them; he sternly refused, but put them 
in a drawer. I had more attacks of fright 
—more serious ones—I went back to the 
hotel, looking out on the way for a letter- 
box which [ at last found. I wrote letters 
to the Ambassadors in St. Petersburg and 
Vienna, got stamps from the porter, and, 
going out, walked away from the box, 
followed by my Cossacks. I easily evaded 
them and dropped the letters in the box. 
Now I knew I was safe. I stayed for days 
at my own expense and nothing happened, 


CHAPTER XXVI - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


save that not a person in the hotel would 
speak to me or come near me, and the land- 
lord wept often and copiously, and in the 
stores I could scarce buy a thing. I got no 
answer to my letters. The fright went, but 
I was sure I should spend months in the 
place, and years in Siberia later, till I es- 
caped, for if I could not do as creatures of 
the Volskofski, Stepniak and Kropotkin 
type could, I should be ashamed of myself. 
I had seen them all in London. For a week 
nothing happened. E. knew where I was. 
I had written her from Kiev before I left, 
and she would not worry. 

w the eighth day, I think it was, at 
O lunch, a man came up to me in the 
hotel, the first person for a week who 
would talk to me, and he spoke American. 
He said he had heard how I had been 
treated, and it was all over the town; 
people were afraid to do anything for, or 
even speak to me, but he was different. 
He had studied in the Dental College in 
Philadelphia, and the photographer was 
his brother-in-law, and Russia was an 
awful place, but his brother-in-law was 
very good. I cross-questioned him and 
there was no more doubt that he had been 
in Philadelphia, than that many of the 
Jews with their side ringlets cut off had 
been in London and New York. If I would 
come that night to his brother-in-law’s, 
he thought things could be arranged. He 
took me, there was a good supper, and 
after supper the Chief of Police came and 
found his French again, and told me that 
if I would give him five hundred rubles 
I could leave the next day. As I was sure 
in a few days I should hear from the 
United States Minister in St. Petersburg, 
I refused, and still refused when he came 
down to fifty. Then he said that the next 
night there were two trains, one at twelve 
and the other at three, for Austria and 
Hungary; which would I take?—for I must 


[1891 ] 









; 
ed 

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"Gh SNAATEY CForENE Gy ere gy 


Gey 


de a ‘id yy 
STN AS 5 fl!) Ve 
Re SS ay ’ ’ RS YB YY (=> 





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THE MARKET: KIEV > JEWS AND RUSSIANS BARGAINING : PUBLISHED IN THE JEW AT HOME 


THROWN OUT OF RUSSIA - ESCORTED TO THE FRONTIER 


leave the country. I said I would take 
the first. He seemed relieved and told me 
that my passport would be at the sta- 
tion. I packed up the next day, paid the 
landlord, who, with smiles and tears bade 
me good-bye, and long before midnight 
was at the station. There a charming offi- 
cer of Cossacks greeted me in French, 
asked me what class I was going, bought 
a ticket and a berth for me and himself in 
the Pullman—at my expense—got into 
the compartment with me, and off we 
went. Repeatedly that night and the next 
day the train was boarded by officials who 
either saluted him or whom he saluted. 
They looked at my passport, some marked 
it, and we went on. There was a final ex- 
amination at the frontier, one or two 
people were stopped, the train started 
again and we were out of Russia. But the 
officer stayed—it was late at night—till we 
came to Podwoloczyska, the first Austria- 
Hungarian station. I got out and so did the 
officer. On the engine were two Cossacks. 
At the Austrian Customs office, in the café, 
we had a drink at my expense. He saluted 
and jumped on the train,which backed out. 
I was free. The first person I met was a 
Jew, after I had passed the customs, and 
when he had carried my bag to my room in 
the hotel, he whispered that he had two 
charming daughters who had heard of my 
misfortunes and were anxious to console 
me—for a consideration. But as the cor- 
respondent of the PestEr Lioyp turned up 
at the same time, I spent the rest of the night 
with him. All the way to Budapest I was 
the subject of a mild ovation—and there 
was E., more reporters, and the Consul at 
the station, and a wire from the Minister, 
Colonel Grant, to come to Vienna at once. 
When I got there, it was to be told that 
the United States had taken up the mat- 
ter of my detention and expulsion, that 
he had heard from Washington; but when 


2S) 


I showed him the passport, his only re- 
mark, besides asking E. and me to dinner, 
was, You should thank your stars that 
you are coming to dinner here, rather than 
going to Siberia.’’ The fact that American 
passports are only good for two years is 
now stated on them. While I was in the 
Embassy, my letter from Berditchev was 
delivered to the Minister. He opened and 
read it. ““Well,”’ said I, ‘‘now you have 
the facts before the Russians.’’ Without 
a word, he took an unopened letter, held 
it over a tea kettle and the envelope 
opened itself.‘*I thought you knew that 
trick,’’ he said. There were more inter- 
views and I was supposed to have injured 
my health, though there would be no 
damages for that, but even the doctor 
was disgusted when he found that the 
shocking cough only came from my ton- 
sils and did not mean galloping consump- 
tion. I wrote the facts to Scribner's, the 
reason why the article was not illustrated. 
Harold Frederic was too scared to go to 
Berditchev, so the article never appeared. 
The only real Jews he saw, when not per- 
sonally conducted to them by Jews, were 
those I showed him in the filthy—now tre- 
formed—Judengasse of Vienna, for we met 
again in that city, and he admitted he had 
seen nothing like them until I took him 
there. Even Poultney Bigelow was fright- 
ened by the sight of the two conductors 
in the Russian train he traveled on and 
thought they had come to arrest him. Scrib- 
ner’s never answered my letter, never paid 
my expenses. The first Berditchev drawing 
was published in THe ILLustraATED LoNDON 
News, after the Editor, Clement K. Shorter, 
had asked me to “‘finish it’’, he being, of 
course, unable to appreciate that it was a 
record of fact; it was the first sketch ever 
printed in that paper and had much to do 
with revolutionizing and freeing illus- 
trated journalism from ‘‘finish.’’ THe News 


[1891 } 


236 


also printed a series of articles on the Jews 
I saw which nearly lost them their cir- 
culation. A book, THe Jew at Hog, was 
issued by Heinemann, for which, I was 
told, Heinemann’s father, who knew noth- 
ing of Tartar Jews, almost disinherited 
him. The British Consul in Kiev nearly 
was dismissed for helping me and I 


had to explain to the British Government | 


that Ialone was to blame. Joseph Conrad, 
who came from Berditchev—he later came 
from Warsaw, and after his death was 
said to come from the Ukraine; he changed 
his birthplace as well as his name to be- 
come the pride of English literature and 
English Seamanship, by way of writing 
on a tramp steamer to the Congo—told 
me in Professor George Sauter’s studio, 
number one Holland Park Avenue, Lon- 
don, when Sauter was painting his por- 
trait and Conrad was staying with him, 
and I happened in—it was after I had 
written THe Jew at Home which waked 
up Judea—that he, Conrad, had just re- 
turned from Berditchev in little Russia 
where he said he was born, a little Jew in 
what was then the biggest Jew city in the 
world. He never said whether his father 
was a noble, a rabbi or an old hat dealer, 
the latter the two professions of the town 
—he never mentioned him or his family— 
but he did say to me that my book had been 
seen there—many of the inhabitants like 
Conrad had been in London, most stayed 
in Whitechapel, and also said, I remem- 
ber, that the people of Berditchev, his 
native city, told him, to tell me, that if 
I came back again to their town, they 
would crucify me—for writing the articles 
in Tue IntusrrateD Lonpon News and 
publishing Tue Jew at Home. I have not 
been to Russia since, though George Ken- 
nan once suggested we should go together, 
for he said they could do nothing but 
throw us out. But we did not go. Kennan 


CHAPTER XXVI - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


told me one Russian story which I do not 
think is in his book, though, to tell the 
truth, I never got through it. He said he 
was in St. Petersburg and, calling on some 
Minister or the Chief of Police, and the 
official said, ‘“When were you in Russia 
last2?’’ And Kennan answered, “‘Ten or 
twenty years ago.’’ ‘‘What day of the 
month,”’ said the Minister, ‘‘did you ar- 
rive?’’ Naturally, he could not remember. 
‘Bring Mr. Kennan’s dossier,”’ the offi- 
cial remarked to a minion, who appeared 
in answer to his bell. In five minutes it 
came and there it all was, after twenty 
years. ‘‘Wonderful!”’ said he. ““Very,”’ said 
I, ‘but however was it stage-managed?”’ 
The Russian police, before the Revolution, 
could do things, could impress you, and 
I now believe all the escaped convicts 
escaped because the government was glad 
to get rid of them, and not by their own 
cleverness ; anyway, those I met in Lon- 
don Iam sure did. I saw the stupidest of 
all, Kropotkin, and told him that patriots 
in my country did not run away to save it, 
but stayed at home and did so—or used to, 
we are now worse than Russia. He went 
back after the Revolution, but I under- 
stand they did not appreciate him when 
he got there. All this happened before the 
wrecking of Russia. The Bolshevists con- 
cocted the Revolution in the Bronx and in 
Switzerland, and no one bothered them; 
but this country will pay for it soon. Eng- 
land caught signing a treaty with the Soviet 
is trying to escape—the Bolshevist terror. 
Poor forlorn France intrigued into it by a 
desire to grovel to England and fear of 
the Soviet Jews. We go on helping them 
““idealistically’’ and ignorantly. Other na- 
tions have to endure them—for they are 
always with us, but never of us, and when 
the Bolshevist Jew tries to dominate us— 
remember Russia, for this sort of Jew does 
not forget and is out to-day for revenge. 


{ 1891 | 





CHAPTER XXVIII: WHISTLER : FIRST MEETING WITH 
HIM - STEVENSON AND I WORK FOR HIM - HIS TRIUMPH 
PRINTING ETCHINGS WITH HIM - HIS LITTLE JOURNIES - HIS 
ILLUSTRATIONS : HIS CATALOGUES AND HIS OTHER BOOKS 





THE RUSSIAN SCHUBE: PORTRAIT: JOSEPH PEN- 
NELL ON HIS RETURN FROM RUSSIA +: LITH- 
OGRAPH BY WHISTLER »- PENNELL COLLEC- 
TION LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON 


HOUGH many of the menand women 

with whom I have adventured have 

already been called great in their 

various ways, and most of them 
will be remembered, it was my good for- 
tune and good sense that, from the very 
beginning, I was able to appreciate Whis- 
tler’s work and to recognize, years before 
I got to know him and came to love him, 
that he was a great man, the greatest | 
have known, the greatest artist of his day. 
His fame is sure, his place is fixed for all 
time. It is only in his own country and 
among his artless successors in this mid- 
Victorian Main Street land, through the 
envy and jealousy of the little Babbitts, 


mostly blustering, bellowing, Middle-West 
bores, who lord over the old maids in 
pants and petticoats, busy running our art 
to uplift it for its moral good and their 
cash profit, that Whistler is not acknowl- 
edged to be America’s greatest artist. But 
no prophet is without honor save in his 





JOSEPH PENNELL: LITHOGRAPH BY WHISTLER 
IN THE PENNELL COLLECTION OF WHISTLER- 
IANA LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON 


[1884 } 


238 


own land, and most of those we think 
prophets are foreigners, fakes, fools. Amer- 
ica and American art and literature are in 
thesame blind alley, run by the same busi- 
ness men, where England was in the mid- 
Victorian Age, only we are worse—we 
are dry too, and there can be no art ina 
dry desert or a Bryanized land. 
¥ love of Whistler's work dates from 
M the First Day afternoons I spent at 
James L.Claghorn’s in Philadelphia, look- 
ing at his prints, and my love of the man 
did not end when I saw him laid to rest 
in the little churchyard at Chiswick. Of 
course, there were interludes of trial and 
of temper, but, as a whole, these years 
were the happiest, best of my life, and I 
can never cease rejoicing that the few I 
really cared for were called before the 
world was wrecked, Whistler and my father 
among them, and both hated hypocrisy, 
lying, humbug, on which the world stum- 
bles and blunders along today, made safe 
for delusion and deceit. 
I suPPOsE I got on with Whistler because 
we were both Americans, but how many 
Americans did he not fight with. Most that 
he knew, however, were of the hyphenated 
variety, and he could not stand them—no 
decently constituted American can—nor 
the uplifters and do-gooders who rule us 
to-day. And then another reason. I always 
stood up to him as I did the morning in 
July, 1884, when I first went to his studio 
in Tite Street. As we have told in Tue Lire 
oF WuisTLeR and THE WHIsTLER JOURNAL, 
I made this first visit to Whistler, whom I 
had never seen before, armed with a letter 
from Gilder, to ask him to do some illus- 
trations with me for Dr. B. E. Martin’s 
articles on OLD Cuetsza, published in THe 
Century, and after as a book of the same 
name. He refused, but that meeting, though 
neither of us realized it, was the beginning 
of our friendship, which only ended with 


CHAPTER XXVIII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


his death. When he said he could not make 
the drawings, he stirred up Mortimer 
Menpes, working in a corner of the studio, 
and said, ‘‘but hecan.’’ ‘‘No,”’ said I, ‘‘if 
you wont, I will.”’ Idid not like Whistler 
then, though I was amazed at the ‘‘Sara- 
sate’ on the easel, and delighted with the 
house in Tite Street, the lunch to which 
he asked me to stay, and my visit with 
him to his show at Dowdeswells’ in the 
afternoon. Nor did I like him when I saw 
him a few days later, carrying his long 
cane, the only time I ever saw him with 
it. I hid from him, though probably he 
would not have remembered me if I had 
spoken to him at the bookstall in Char- 
ing Cross station. That was the year he 
and Chase painted each other. Only on 
our rare descents on London, did I see him 
during our early years in England, the years 
of the Ten O’Crocx, which we did not 
hear, and the dinner to him to which I 
did not go. Once in a while I met him, 
but never quite liked him—was afraid of 
him, as every one was—at the dinners at 
Solferino’s of THe Nationat OssErvER 
staff, still later in Henley’s or Whibley’s 
rooms, where he sometimes went. Once 
I remember his taking me after one of 
those dinners to the Arts Club, then in 
Hanover Square, and again Bob Steven- 
son .took us to the Savile and made a 
night of it, though for hours we tried to 
get Whistler to go home. Then Bob and 
I, after we had got him at last into a han- 
som when the Club closed, and wondered 
who would pay for it, walked across the 
street to the cab stand, by the Green Park, 
the Club kitchen long before shut, and ate 
boiled potatoes in their jackets and drank 
coffee and talked with the cabbies and 
then walked about till dawn and the first 
train to Chiswick, where Stevenson lived. 
But I remember really nothing of those 
talks, though they were the most brilliant 


[1884] 





_ 





J. McN. WHISTLER - 
BROOKLYN MUSEUM 


Sat) 


FROM THE PORTRAIT BY JEAN BOLDINI IN THE 
* BY PERMISSION OF THE MUSEUM TRUSTEES 


240 


I ever heard. Stevenson too wrote of my 
Devirs or Norre Dame ten years later, 
but I have not seen that book, limited to 
seventy-five copies, for years. Ido recall a 
dinner at the new English Art Club, in 
honor of Fred Brown, just appointed Slade 
Professor, and he made me instructor in the 
Graphic Arts. Whistler sat on one side of 
the chairman and Wedmore on the other, 
and Whistler, in a speech, discussed Wed- 
more as though he was not there, and 
“Freddy Weddy”’ had neither the courage 
to run away nor the brains to refer to 
Whistler when it was his turn to talk— 
‘the silly, piffling ass,’’ as Whistler called 
him. Fred Brown and the New English 
then cared for Whistler, but he frightened 
poor Steer who said he did not like always 
to be kicked, and Brown, who has since 
declared Whistler out of fashion at the 
Slade School. I have heard that same state- 
ment here from the same sort of professor. 
Fred Brown, I do not know if he still 
lives, is nearly forgotten as an artist and 
a teacher. J remember too, the dinner to 
which George Moore came, after criticiz- 
ing a rejected picture at the New English, 
and the rumor was that somebody wanted 
to thrash him, and on my way home I 
stumbled upon him in the street and took 
him in a cab to the Gate of the Temple, 
where he lived. And I remember the ex- 
position of Herkomer as an etcher of photo- 
gravures to illustrate his musical play AN 
Ipy, and that I went, the only time, to 
Whistler's house at 21 Cheyne Walk and 
found Sickert waiting to be sent out to 
post letters, and Whistler stood up for me 
for the first time against Herkomer and we 
drove him, by calling on the Queen in THE 
NatTIonat Osserver, from the Slade Pro- 
fessorship at Oxford—or was it Cambridge? 
It was not till I succeeded George Bernard 
Shaw as art critic on Tue Star that I really 
got to know Whistler. For along with 


CHAPTER XXVII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Bob Stevenson, though my name is always 
omitted by the honest British authorities, 
I began to tell the blind Britons what an 
artist was in their midst. D. S. MacColl 
chipped in ponderously, and George Moore, 
also wanting as usual to be on the right 
side, floundered about clumsily. But Bob 
Stevenson, E. and I, day after day, said 
Whistler, wrote Whistler, and we made him 
known, we and none else, for we wrote and 
always wrote Whistler's name in every 
article we printed, he in Taz Saturpay 
Review and Tue Part Matz Gazette, and 
E. and I in Tue Dairy Curonicrze, THE 
Star and Tue Nation.We made him known 
as a great artist, but we had nothing to 
do with making his reputation. That was 
made, made from the beginning by his 
work. But we forced ‘“The Islanders,’’ the 
Britons, to realize that the greatest artist 
of the modern world lived in their midst. 
Here, that he was great and an American 
is not realized yet. 
A Lu this was long before the Goupil 
Exhibition of 1892. Then he was still 
friendly with some of the New English Art 
Club men—Starr, Sickert, Roussel, and the 
artists who came out of the Royal British 
Society for which he got the Royal Char- 
ter. They even helped him hang the show, 
even put some of his work ina corner at the 
recent celebration of the Club’s Fiftieth An- 
niversary. As Stevenson and I had backed 
him, it was to us that he came to be con- 
gtatulated on the day of his triumph, for it 
was our triumph when we found we had 
caused the honest critics of Great Britain to 
swallow themselves, their notions and their 
writings of thirty years, and accept us as 
well as Whistler. This has never been and 
never will be admitted in God-fearing, 
time-serving England; but it is true, though 
the knowledge of it has not reached Amer- 
ica, where, when he is praised, it is by 
stealing from us and not acknowledging 


[ 1892 } 





WHISTLER - MAKING THE ARTIST KNOWN 





FIRELIGHT NO. 2 + JOSEPH PENNELL ° THIS 
AND THE OTHER THREE LITHOGRAPHS BY 
WHISTLER WERE MADE IN OUR CHAMBERS 
AT NO. 14 BUCKINGHAM STREET ADELPHI 


*FROM A TRIAL PROOF IN THE PENNELL COL- 


LECTION LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON 


it. All this grew out of our press campaign, 
our log-rolling—it was nothing else—we 
were rolling logs for the biggest artist of 
his age, and it only was telling the truth 
to a blind world. It was the right thing 
to do and Whistler, as a big man, acknowl- 
edged it. Sometimes he wanted us to do 
more, to shout from the house tops and 
through the press agencies for him and 
about him. As he said, ““When a general 
wins a victory, does he sit down and mope? 
No, he lets the world hear all about it and 
himself.’’ And what Whistler wanted was 
that we should be his press agents, his war 
correspondents, and we would not. Many 
before—Sickert among them—had suc- 
cumbed, been squeezed dry and cast aside. 
Sickert, who brought on the lithograph 
case, tried to retaliate, and it has taken him 


241 


a lifetime to recover from that catastrophe. 
But his past is forgotten and he has been 
gathered into the fold, made an Academi- 
cian like Herkomer. Sheridan Ford was 
another who tried to be his press agent and 
failed and was also cast out. And Menpes 
was a Slave and a slavey and went out 
also. But we kept on praising Whistler 
because we knew we were right, and not 
to please him, though we were glad when 
we did, which was not always by any 
means. Our attitude made him respect us. 
And we both still praised him till Bob 
Stevenson died, and I kept on till the final 
triumph of the Memorial Exhibition in 
1905 in London, when, at the end of my 
last article on the triumph of the Exhibi- 
tion, I said, ‘“The last word I shall write 
in this column is the name of Whistler.”’ 
And the next week a hack, to whom Whis- 


tler and his work were anathema, succeeded 





FIRELIGHT NO. I + JOSEPH PENNELL : FROM 
A LITHOGRAPH BY WHISTLER DIPLOMA 
PORTRAIT - NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN 


[1893 | 


242 


me. But Whistler’s name and his fame had 
been secured everlastingly, and all, save 
the mongrel mid-Victorians of this Main 
Street, blind-alley land, know it now; and 
if it pays they will turn, as the British 
did, and they will swallow Whistler, too. 
They wont like it, they wont know why. 
But the American art lover hates art, he 
only endures it because it pays, or he hopes 
his investments in it will pay. 
HISTLER went to Paris in 1892 and I 
\¢ followed in 1893. He settled in the 
Rue du Bac and I on the towers of Notre 
Dame, to make my drawings of the cathe- 
dral, and then Bob Stevenson wrote THE 
Devits oF Notre Dame, as I have said. We 
have written in THe Lire how Whistler 
climbed up there to find me and tell me 
that he wanted me to help him print his 
Paris plates,as Menpes had helped with the 
Venice series. Whistler had another side 
which I have also—things must be done the 
way he wanted, the way I want. There was 
a scene after a few days of my waiting, when 
I told him I would only be too proud to 
be allowed to work with him and learn 
from him by helping him print, but I 
would not hang round and waste my time 
with him doing nothing, even though that 
included trips to Fontainebleau, to St.Denis, 
and lunches at Marguery’s and dinners in 
the Rue du Bac. Most people would have 
succumbed and been thrown out. He took 
me to work at once 1n the studio when I 
gave him my ultimatum. That was the 
only way to get on with him, to stand up 
to him as to any other big man, and if the 
man ts really big, as Whistler was, he will 
be big enough to admit the right, as Whis- 
tler always did, though sometimes only 
after a battle. He never won one of those 
battles with me, but there were doubtful 
moments, and so I stayed with him and 
by him to the end. There were happenings 
that summer in and out of the studio and 


CHAPTER XXVIII >THE ADVENTURES ‘OF AN ILLUSTRA OR: 


the Rue du Bac—the printing of the etch- 
ings, the good dinners, and the Sally Brown 
row, and that was an adventure. It is told 
in Tue Lire. Those long days in the studio 
were full of hard work, always for him, 
with interruptions for me, for he would 
turn from etching to painting or drawing 
while I loafed. At the end of the day he 
was less tired than I, but he was trained 
and, as he used to say, “‘it took better 
training, harder work, to paint a nocturne 
than to win a football game or a prize 
fight. Besides, anybody could get the con- 
cierge to do that for him—What?”’ 
A LL the while a shadow was approach- 
ing, and at last it touched him—his 
wife's 1llness—and the apartment in Paris 
was closed and the studio was shut up, 
and he started on those pilgrimages to 
find her lost health that ended only with 
her death. And during her illness at the 
Savoy, where he was staying, he would 
come to us in Buckingham Street where 
we moved after I came back from Russia. 
And it was then that he made the litho- 
graphs. ‘“The Russian Schube,”’ that was 
his name for it, was one of them and a 
few days later he said, ‘‘I want to paint 
your portrait in that Schube, and so I 
have taken a studio in Fitzroy Street and 
there we will do it, and maybe the Penn- 
sylvania Academy will buy it, and we will 
go down together.’’ “‘But I have to go to 
Italy,’’ said I. “‘Oh, well,’’ said he. And 
that was the end of it, for the moment 
passed. After his wife’s death his jour- 
neys were renewed to escape from his mem- 
ories, either alone or with ‘‘the ladies’’ 
or Freer or Heinemann, and with us. Over 
and over he wanted me to go with him to 
Holland, to Madrid, to Algiers. I never 
had the time, or the courage, for I feared 
there would be a break. I knew his ways 
too well and many of them were not my 
ways. It was best for both I could not go. 


[1893 | 











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HE LIVED ON THE GROUND 


SKETCH MADE I 923° 


S APARTMENT IIO RUE DU BAC: 


WHISTLER’ 


FLOOR OF THE CENTRAL HOUSE * THE ENTRANCE WAS THROUGH THE OPEN DOOR ON THE LEFT 





24.4, 


These trips were those of a broken-hearted 
man, his wife’s death shortened his life. 
But from every one of them and on every 
one of them, he made and brought back 
some lithograph, painting, drawing or 
etching, by which he lives and through 
which his fame grows. He could not be 
idle, he could not loaf, this charlatan, 
this loafer, this humbug—“‘for there is so 
much to do and the time to do it is so 
short,’’ was the creed and the cry he re- 
peated over and over. There would be 
afternoons in London sketching, he in his 
top hat and long coat sitting on his little 
stool in the street which became a recep- 
tion room—every one knew him, and now 
they wanted to prove it, the people who 
had ignored him. It was when he had to 
admit that his wife’s case was hopeless, 
while they stayed at the Savoy, that E. 
and I began to know him well by seeing 
him daily. On one of those days, as we 
were walking back to the hotel, he had a 
glorious encounter with “‘the enemy.”’ 
Somebody suddenly rushed up to him. 


“Hello, Jimmy, old man, I havent spoken . 


to you for thirty years!’’ A sweeping look 
at him from head to foot, the never opened 
umbrella pointed at the already fright- 
overpowered object, and Whistler slowly 
said, ‘Joseph,what is that?”’ Itran.‘‘H’m,”’ 
he said, ‘‘hasnt spoken to me for thirty 
years. I guess it will be another thirty 
before he tries again. What?’’ Another 
day he did get left. We were coming from 
the studio ; it began to rain. He never would 
undo his carefully, tightly rolled umbrella. 
He called a coming hansom. The cab drew 
up and we saw “‘a fare’’ inside. The cab- 
man looked Whistler all over and said, 
“Were did yer buy yer ‘at? Go git yer 
air cut, and whipped up. ‘‘Joseph,”’ said 
Whistler, “‘we will take an omnibus.’’ 
And we did to Frascati’s and had an ab- 
sinthe. But he liked cocktails better, and 


CHAPTER XXVIII >THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


what arrangements he could make in Heine- 
mann’s big glasses. At this time, too, he 
had his collection of chateaux and pieds- 
a-terre—the apartment in the Rue du Bac, 
the studio in Notre Dame des Champs, a 
suite at the Hotel Chatham, Paris, and in 
London a room at Garlant’s and at Heine- 
mann’s and the studio in Fitzroy Street, 
and he mostly dined with us for months. 

NOTHER reason why I should write of 

Whistler here is because he, too, was 
an illustrator from the time of his first 
etching of Anacapa Island, done as an illus- 
tration for the Coast Survey Report, to 
the last pen drawings made in Algiers and 
Corsica. His work for Goop Worps and 
Once a WEEK is well known and he was 
as proud of it as of his paintings. His illus- 
trations for the rare CATALOGUE OF BLUE 
AND WuiTE NANKIN PorcELAIN are as fine 
as any Japanese work, his Butterflies and his 
little sketches in his books are works of 
art, and so are his drawings for THz Dairy 
CHRONICLE, his designs for invitations and 
posters, the seal and catalogues of the 
International Society and the lithographs 
which in THe WxirLwinp sold for a penny 
and in THe ALBERMARLE and Tue Stup10 
and Art Journat fora shilling. In France 
the GazettE pes Beaux Arts wanted to 
print one of his etchings for nothing, say- 
ing he would then be born an artist, but he 
replied he could not afford to be born that 
way—and Hamerton wanted another for 
EtcHING AND Etcuers, but said, instead of 
printing it, that the artist asked the price 
of a good horse for a plate. But both these 
matters were arranged and the plates printed 
—and why, I impressed on him, should he 
not be paid, instead of helping with his 
work to make the fortune of publishers? 
Though if any one was poorly paid, he 
was for his prints, even up to the last ask- 
ing most modest prices. Fifteen guineas 
he told me was the highest price he ever 


[1893 } 

















i me : 


oe 
ve rea 


re 





TURNER'S HOUSE ON THE RIVER AT CHELSEA » FROM PEN DRAWING 1884 * NOW IN THE 
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE WASHINGTON + ILLUSTRATION FOR B. E. MARTIN’S OLD CHELSEA 


246 


got; but it was a long while before I could 
convince him that his work, which was 
wanted, was worth paying for. He was a 
many-sided artist, not a lop-sided painter. 
Finally, the reproductions from his paint- 
ings and his etchings, original plates for 
the Junior Etching Club and the Mem- 
oir of Cecil Lawson, those published in 
Tue Stupio, THe Art Journat and L’ Art 
Mopberng, prove he too was an illustrator 
and took illustration as seriously as any 
other form of art, as all great artists do. 
His own books, THe TEn O’Crocx and THE 
GENTLE ArT oF Maxinc Enemizs are his 
own in design, so are his posters. 
HISTLER was also among my authors, 
for he wrote the Introduction to the 
Catalogue of my show of lithographs at 
the Fine Art Society's Gallery, which re- 


7 i wi 


i 






































CHAPTER XXVII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


sulted in the Sickert case, really an attempt 
to injure Whistler. But Sickert left Eng- 
land and Tue Saturpay Review, in which 
the article appeared, was sold despite the 
threat of Frank Harris to kill me as an 
artist. I shall not forget his ordering a 
lunch to celebrate his victory and Whis- 
tler and our lawyer Poole of George Lewis's 
and ourselves eating it in another restau- 
rant. And I introduced in his Catalogue, 
Whistler's first exhibition of lithographs 
also at the Fine Art Society's rooms. Both 
exhibitions were financial failures, though 
Whistler only asked a guinea for some of 
the prints, and those in THz WaiRLWIND 
were given away. I showed my Alhambra 
prints, and he his life work in lithography. 
And because of his Introduction tomy lith- 
ographs, he is of right among my authors. 


Higgs A 
int i) 

























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































OLD CHEYNE WALK CHELSEA - 


WITH THE LITTLE SHOPS WHISTLER PAINTED - 





FROM OLD 


CHELSEA BY B. E. MARTIN + WASH DRAWING 1884 - ENGRAVED BY ATWOOD +: UNWIN 1886 


[1893-1903 } 





CHAPTER XXVIII: ILLUSTRATED DAILY JOURNALISM 
I WANT TO BE AN ART EDITOR : THE BIRTH OF THE DAILY 
GRAPHIC: BECOME ART EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE 
WHICH PRINTS LARGE ILLUSTRATIONS SUCCESSFULLY AND 
MY SCHEME IS ADOPTED HERE BY THE NEW YORK TIMES 


LA g 


ESA 




















THE UNREFORMED LODGING HOUSE : 
CHRONICLE OF LONDON :- 


to be an Art Editor. I knew I should 
make a good one and I did. It hap- 
pened this way. Tur Dairy CHRONICLE 
of London, about 1895, under the editor- 
ship of H. W. Massingham, was not only 
violently reform—really radical, though 
not red—but in his reign also violently 
literary and artistic, and for several years 
E. and I did art criticisms for it. From the 


] ALways wanted, and yet did not want, 





AS KARtTRVEK 


+4 





PEN DRAWING BY A. S. HARTRICK FOR THE DAILY 
PRINTED IN 1895 DURING MY ART EDITORSHIP OF THAT PAPER 


beginning I was keenly interested in en- 
graving and printing. I even owned a 
printing press, but this interest became 
acute when Drake made us illustrators 
work with the wood engravers and proc- 
ess men and with DeVinne, the printer, 
with whom I did the book on the Plantin 
Museum for the Grolier Club. Meanwhile, 
in many lands, on many occasions, I had 
worked with engravers and printers. I 


[1895 } 


( fi 
YS 


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Vaan ial 


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og 


LONDON EAST END GROCERY - PEN SKETCH BY PHIL MAY - FOR THE DRAWING PRINTED IN 
THE CHRONICLE 1895 * MAY ALWAYS BEGAN HIS DRAWINGS IN THIS FASHION MAKING PRE- 
LIMINARY SKETCHES THEN PLACING A SHEET OF TRACING PAPER OVER THE SKETCH AND 
DOING THE FINISHED DRAWING ON THAT + AND SOMETIMES SEVERAL WERE MADE BEFORE. 
HE WAS SATISFIED +: TIME AND TROUBLE WERE NOTHING TO MAY +» THE RESULT EVERYTHING 





AuBREY BEARDSLEY 





THE BALLET COSTUME APPROVED BY THE LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL » PEN DRAWING BY 
AUBREY BEARDSLEY »- PRINTED IN THE DAILY CHRONICLE 1895 * DRAWING FORMERLY IN 
THE PENNELL COLLECTION : THIS DRAWING AND MANY OTHERS WERE DESTROYED IN THE WAR 


250 


even assisted at the birth of the London 
Datty Grapuic. That was a function, an 
event, an adventure. One night we were 
all invited to the birth of the paper, and 
artists, engravers, editors, reporters, and 
a selected public assembled in the old 
Grapuic press room off the Strand—or 
was it in the new one in Tudor Street? 
The magnificent W. L. Thomas, proprie- 
tor, editor, manager, director, was there, 
and there was the new press, a Marinoni, 
and Marinoni himself came over from Paris 
to see it start, and Sir Edward Clarke, our 
lawyer in the lithograph case, was to start 
it and make a speech after he pulled a lever 
or pressed a button, and we all crowded 
round the delivery end of the machine to 
grab the first copy of the first modern illus- 
trated English daily paper. Slowly, and 
then faster, the cylinders revolved, but 
there came a sudden shriek and from the 
machine, instead of the paper, a stream of 
paper ribbons and showers of ink filled 
the place and we fled, but as we ran we 
saw Marinonirush and stop it. In the ad- 
joining room we recovered over cham- 
pagne and oysters and later went back 
and found the press this time turning out 
the paper as it should, and then there was 
more champagne and speeches. But once 
Tue Dairy Grapuic was started it stuck 
to its original method and scheme, small 
illustrations by big men. Among them, 
as among the original staff of the weekly 
GrapuHic, were the best artists Thomas 
could get. He even had a sort of school 
in the place and in it Hartrick and Sulli- 
van were trained, and Phil May worked, 
but they were kept to a standardized 
method of expression by the masterful 
Thomas. 

NE day Massingham came tome with 
O a secret and a suggestion. There was 
to be a London County Council election 
and he would run it with art as an aid, if 


CHAPTER XXVIII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


I would help him as art editor and form 
a staff. It was like forming a cabinet, but 
I did it. I got Whistler, Walter Crane, 
Burne-Jones, William Morris, Phil May, 
Bernard Partridge, Alfred Parsons, Raven- 
Hill, Maurice Greiffenhagen, E. J. Sulli- 
van, A. S. Hartrick, and Aubrey Beards- 
ley to make drawings, Carl Henschel to 
engrave them, and all were large and re- 
produced large, some a half page. Then 
came trouble. No one knew how they 
could be printed. But, with that illus- 
trative genius that has never deserted me, 
I got the entire page on which they were 
to be printed electrotyped at a cost that, 
even with the advertisements, on which 
and by which all American and later do 
good to the poor people English uplift- 
ing papers flourish, was ruinous. Then I 
placed the electrotyped page on the cyl- 
inder of the Hoe machine, a new one— 
after the edition had been printed about 
three in the morning, and in the presence 
of Frank Lloyd, the managing director, 
Massingham, the editor, the printer Mr. 
Bugg, and the engraver Henschel, the 
press was started at thirty thousand an 
hour. The first copy came out splendidly, 
but in thirty seconds the page and the 
facing page were solid black ink. We 
heated the cylinder and put a blanket on 
it; but in a minute the blanket was an 
inch deep in ink. We took the blanket off 
and then the ceiling got a coat of ink. 
And then we sadly, Massingham and I, 
walked home up Fleet Street in the dawn. 
We left the printer swearing and the pro- 
prietor raging, for it is not safe to play 
tricks with a Hoe press, especially if you 
have a paper to bring out on it at the same 
time—and that the proprietor assured us 
was the case. Between naps and visits 
from my staff with drawings, I evolved a 
scheme from my inner consciousness and 
small experience with big presses, and 


[1895 ] 








THE ART EDITOR AT WORK - PORTRAIT OF JOSEPH PENNELL PRINTING HIS ETCH- 
INGS ON HIS PRESS IN HIS ADELPHI TERRACE STUDIO - BY J. MCLURE HAMILTON 





252 


putting the illustrated page on a hot cyl- 
inder and running it exposed for the whole 
length of the press before we printed the 
back, the scheme worked, and English 
illustrated daily journalism was invented. 
There were troubles, of course. The paper 
could not stand the expense, so the cop- 
per plates were screwed on to the stereo- 
typed page where blank spaces were left, 
though that broke the stereotyper’s heart, 
and the printer was sure a screw would 
come out and ruin the press. And finally, 
after I believe the stereotyper died of it— 
at least I heard so—others learned to make 
good stereotypes of illustrations, but it 
was in this way all newspaper illustra- 


ESRI Sa 





AWN 
aN WI 


Wz 


CHAPTER XXVIII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


tions are printed now. And I, with the 
printer Mr. Bugg, and the engraver Carl 
Henschel, invented the method. I got no 
real reward and Henschel took the credit. 
But it succeededand no such illustrations 
had ever been printed 1n a daily paper be- 
fore, nor have they ever been made by 
such a distinguished body of artists since. 
Though the system was copied univer- 
sally, no such results have been obtained, 
and it is all forgotten, though all dailies 
are illustrated now. But there was another 
result. The drawings glorified the work 
the County Council—the Progressives— 
had done for London and were going to 
do. Only, when the votes for the new 


“Mie Yl, Neus. | 
WUC is 


—==z a 





THE STONE BREAKER + PEN DRAWING BY E. J. SULLIVAN FOR THE DAILY CHRONICLE 1895 


[1895 } 








Nie “ee 


THE ISTHMUS + PRINTED IN THE NEW YORK 


‘*, 


GAILLARD CUT -: LITHOGRAPH DRAWN ON 
TIMES I912 + FROM THE PROOF IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM + PRESENTED BY J. B. 
BISHOP + SECRETARY PANAMA CANAL COMMISSION + PROOFS ARE IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM LONDON : LIBRARY OF CONGRESS - GOVERNMENT BUILDING 
BILBAO » BROOKLYN * CHICAGO +» CLEVELAND + PHILADELPHIA AND MANY OTHER GALLERIES 





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ILLUSTRATED DAILY JOURNALISM 


Members were counted, it was found the 
Progressives had lost twenty-five seats and 
we had published about that number of 
drawings. Such was the power of art in 
England. I was told Beardsley lost us a 
lot of votes. But we had a fine time, some 
good dinners, as well as the satisfaction 
of having done notable work and making 
the use of the the big drawing universal 
in English daily papers. The method was 
adopted in the United States and, from 
1885 till 1913, here too remarkable work 
was done, especially by THs New Yorx 
Times, which printed many of my draw- 
ings, including the supplement containing 
the lithographs of the Panama Canal which 
were syndicated by Tue Times. Clichés 
were printed in about one hundred papers 





- THE PANAMA DRAWINGS 


=e 


all over the country. Soon after this the 
rotogravure and the offset press were in- 
troduced, photography replaced the artist 
—save in the comics and other vulgar- 
isms—and original illustration has been 
mostly driven from the daily papers. This 
is progress—backwards. There is no evo- 
lution in these United States any longer, 
but devolution, degeneracy and decay. 
Rotten work has replaced experiments, 
the cause is the Union, and the fact that 
no artists, engravers or printers are taught 
their crafts and trades. Business men have 
succeeded them, conventions and cackle 
sustain and applaud the rubbish spewed 
out to-day—and, in our blind ignorance, 
we are content, rejoicing in the depths to 
which Progress has stupidly led us to-day. 


rary omg) 


BUILDING HELL GATE BRIDGE » CHALK DRAWING PRINTED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES I912 


[1912] 





TBST pana ty eons By x 


5, Be ht easel immense 
Ps 


CHOIR OF SAN JUAN DE LOS REYES TOLEDO - CHARCOAL DRAWING FOR CASTILIAN DAYS 
PUBLISHED BY W. HEINEMANN + FOR TWO OR THREE SUMMERS BETWEEN I900 AND 1905 I 
WAS WANDERING IN SPAIN FOR MONTHS ILLUSTRATING WASHINGTON IRVING'S ALHAMBRA 
AND JOHN HAY’S CASTILIAN DAYS : THESE TWO DRAWINGS WERE PRINTED IN THE LATTER BOOK 











THE TAGUS AT TOLEDO * CHARCOAL DRAWING I905 » MADE FOR CASTILIAN DAYS - W. HEINE- 
MANN: MOST OF THE ORIGINAL DRAWINGS FOR THIS BOOK ARE NOW IN THE CHICAGO ART 
INSTITUTE - THE ALHAMBRA DRAWINGS PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLANS IN THEIR CRANFORD 
EDITION WERE EXHIBITED AND ARE MOSTLY SOLD AND SCATTERED AND DIFFICULT TO TRACE 


CHAPTER XXIX: HENRY JAMES - I MEET HIM - THE 
FAUST ARTICLE IN THE CENTURY * ILLUSTRATE Aelia 
TOUR IN FRANCE AND TWO OTHER BOOKS BY HIM - JAMES 
PLAYS IN LONDON AND WAGNERS OPERAS AT BAYREUTH 





Say ee ait Se 
 pygats CARTES AS 


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CIVITA VECCHIA - PEN DRAWING MADE FOR JAMES’ ITALIAN DAYS : W. HEINEMANN 1905 


AM not sure where or when I first met 

Henry James, but I remember the first 

important letter I got from him, but 

it is gone. It went in the War. Had I 
been able to find it, I would have offered 
it to the editor of the very unintellig- 
ible volume of James’ Letters. They were 
unintelligible because they had no con- 
nection and no explanatory notes. The 
letter to me was of many pages and of 
much interest. I had made a series of 
drawings for an article of his on London, 
and from the train, somewhere between 
Lyons and Paris, he wrote me, that get- 
ting out ata station for a cup of bouillon, 
he picked up THz Century ona book- 


stall, and that he liked the drawings so 
much he had to tell me so, which is a 
great deal more than most authors do ; but 
then James was more than most authors, 
that is, more of an artist, for he did try, 
moping in Hunt’s studio, to become a 
painter, but, like his brother, failed. A 
little while after I received his letter I ran 
into him in Macmillan’s office in London, 
and he asked me to lunch at his flat in De 
Vere Gardens. It was hot when I got there 
and James was standing at a high writing 
desk in a dark room, in a red undershirt, 
which was not exactly the usual idea of 
him. He told me he was setting Daumier 
in his place in the Art World by an article, 


{ 1887 | 








HENRY JAMES BY J. S. SARGENT - THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY - SUBSCRIBED FOR 
BY JAMES’ AND SARGENT’S FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS AMONG WHOM WE WERE NUMBERED 


260 


and I, with one of those inspired bursts of 
cheek which come to me sometimes, told 
him that he was not able to do so. He 
was somewhat surprised. I do not think 
the lunch was a great success and I do not 
know whether the article ever appeared; 
but I do know that no author who is not 
an arttist has any right to discuss the Fine 
Arts any more than an artist who cannot 
write should criticize literature. But writers 
on art, though there are no authoritative 
critics in America, save John Van Dyke, 
do not understand things of this elemen- 
tary nature and prove their ignorance by 
their endless blunderings. Most of the so- 
called critics do, however, fool the ignorant 
cultured classes who take them solemnly, 
and the new art most of them boom ser1- 
ously. Off and on, at various times and 
places, including our own and Gosse’s, 
James used to turn up, and one afternoon I 
found him at Keats’ grave in Rome, on 
another walking the Calli of Venice. On 
these occasions we would go toa caffeand 
we would have—or I would have—coffee, 
and he would not, and then he would dis- 
appear. It was not until 1889, when Heine- 
mann suggested bringing out an illustrated 
edition of A Lirrtz Tour 1N France, that 
I did anything but articles with him, and 
even then, as the book was already pub- 
lished, he only rearranged the chapters 
and wrote a new Preface and did not seem 
very keen about that, or me either. But I 
think I made a pretty book of it, and as it 
has gone through several editions, people 
must like it. The last edition has been 
ruined by the publishers. The color blocks 
were all burned during the War, I have 
just learned. I visited every one of the 
places he mentions, on a bicycle, doing 
every drawing on the spot. | 

EFORE this, even before the London 
B article, there was an event which pro- 
duced rather a sensation and has never 


CHAPTER XXIX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


been told. It was arranged that I should 
draw the scenery of Faust, which Henry 
Irving had produced with great success at 
the Lyceum, for THe Century, and that 
James should write of the production. 
Irving and his better half, Bram Stoker, 
were enthusiastic and the theater was 
thrown open to me. To cut the matter 
short, I never did the drawings and James 
did not write exactly the article Irving 
looked for, and the situation became some- 
what strained. It was my only experience 
of the stage, though with Anstey Guthrie 
I once did the London Music Halls and 
with P. T. Barnum his circus. Anstey and 
I used to take William Archer to East 
London in his frail list shoes, and Barnum 
put us in a box with two-headed twins 
and bearded infants, and horse-faced men. 
Anstey’s article came out in Harprr’s and 
the Barnum one in Sr. Nicuotas. There 
was lots of fun in the Music Halls and 
Anstey put some of it in PuncH, strange to 
relate. I hate the theater because, having 
been brought up a Friend, I was taught to 
avoid it, and it was not till I was grown 
up that I ever was in one; and I never go 
now. The first time I went I saw, and was 
extremely bored by Salvini in OTHELLO or 
Hamer, I forget which. He had no interest 
for me. Later I saw Aimée in MADAME 
Ancor, and just before I went to Europe, 
Tue Romany Rye. I was with some wicked 
young things and when the villain jumped 
apparently into real water we demanded 
an encore to see if he was wet, and we 
nearly were thrown out. As I have said, I 
saw Duse in Florence for five cents, long 
before the world heard of her. I always 
wanted to see SWEENEY TopD, THE DEMON 
BARBER OF FLEET STREET, at Sadler's Wells 
in London, the play which is given once 
a year in that theater, in which the hero 
goes in a city gent to be shaved and 
comes out sausages. I did, however, see 


{ 1890 | 





HENRY JAMES - THE FAUST ARTICLE 


in York a dissected house with six mur- 
ders going on in six different rooms at 
once, and I loved the ‘Penny Gaff’’ with 
Pepper's Ghost. And when Fausr came 
out in the Lyceum, I went to the Elephant 
and Castle on the Surrey side of London, 
and saw the play up to date with Pepper’s 
effects. In that version, Margaret matries 
Faust and Mephistopheles weds Martha, 
and they live happily ever after. 

RVING S Faust was different; it was 
I the real thing, and Blake Wirgman was 
to draw the actors and I was to draw the 
scenery. Irving had sent Hawes Craven, the 
scene painter, to Nuremberg and Rothen- 
burg to make studies for the backgrounds, 
and the play was as real as it could be 
when the curtain was up from the front, 
but from the O.P. box and opposite it was 
another thing. I used to sit in the little 
corner behind the proscenium, and I was 
told to keep my head back so I could not 
be seen. Ellen Terry used to squeeze in be- 
side me and her comments, when off, were 
as interesting as the play, and when on, 
her asides were more so. One night, when 
Alexander was telling her in the garden 
scene how he loved her, she told him, so 
I could hear, that he did not, and that if 
he kissed her she would slap him; and an- 
_ other time she bet Tyers in the duel that 
he did not dare kill Irving, who, between 
frightful lunges, kept telling her to shut 
up. And when she entered sometimes she 
would, if she was late, slide down the 
banisters from her dressing room as the 
quickest way to get on; and when there 
had been great applause, as soon as the 
curtain closed, she would start a follow- 
my-leader round the stage, jumping over 
chairs, and dragging Irving growling after 
till the curtain began to open for the bows. 
But the finest scene was her death when 
the angels appeared. The stage, the dun- 


geon, was strewn with straw and made 


201 


ready, and a thing like the top part of an 
eight-oar outrigger was brought on, laid 
on the stage, and eight lovely little lady 
angels lay down on it and were strapped 
to it; and when they were strapped tight, 
Ellen Terry would go round and tickle 
them with straws, and then they were 
furiously, but slowly, wafted to Heaven; 
but the language those lady angels used 
was not heard by the audience in the 
solemn death scene. Iam afraid that this 
side of the play interested me so much that 
I scarce made a drawing, and I do not 
know what Wirgman did. But I do re- 
member the article came out without any 
drawings but it made such a row the illus- 
trations were forgotten. After that I was 
never again asked to the Lyceum, btt, as 
I never go to the theater, it did not mat- 
ter, though I believe Irving thought it 
did. Bram Stoker was more intelligent 
and forgot it all, and I used to go and see 
him and Poultney Bigelow in Tite Street. 
ap HOSE were in the days when Poultney 

ran Outine and London and, like 
Roosevelt, the Kaiser. Poultney had the 
Imperial Signature written with a diamond 
on the front window of his drawing room, 
and an offset of it framed on a blotting 
pad in his library. And there were legends 
in the street that when church was letting 
out, though I do not think many went to 
church from those parts, Mrs. Whistler 
being the only-one I ever heard of, Poult- 
ney and the Kaiser, who came over to 
spend week-ends with him, used to dance 
Highland flings or Czardas for the multi- 
tude, or maybe for Oscar Wilde, who lived 
there—or was it in Beaufort Street these 
things happened? Otherwise, how Mrs. 
Abbey and Mr. Sargent must have been 
shocked ! Speaking of Oscar, I went to his 
sale to buy the alleged portrait of Sara by 
Whistler—only it was not a portrait of 
Sara—but when it was bid up to ten pounds 


[ 1890 } 


< : 
a ae aigle la i 


hy 44 





FOUNTAIN IN THE CLASSIC CITY PARK AT NIMES - WASH DRAWING MADE 
FOR JAMES’ LITTLE TOUR IN FRANCE + PUBLISHED BY W. HEINEMANN 1900 



























































































































































CHARING CROSS STATION * WASH DRAWING FOR JAMES’ ARTICLE ON LONDON - IN 
THE CENTURY 1888 - WOOD ENGRAVING UNSIGNED * DRAWN IN THE OLD STATION 


264 


I stopped, and got what I believed was a 
water color for ten shillings, for Whistlers 
were mostly not wanted then. The sale 
was diversified by fights and I had to call 
in the police, who were-in readiness to 
be called in, and help to carry off, under 
police protection, the admirers and de- 
fenders of Oscar who were there, as always, 
eager to defend or attack for him. 
A FTER THE LitrLte Tour In FRANCE, 
which is the best guide book to that 
country I know, was published, I dida series 
of books with James, Irat1an Days and 
EncuisH Hours. I do not think he liked 
them very much either, but Heinemann, 
the publisher, seemed to ; I did my best, and 
they are much better than any one else’s. 
In the same series also are Hay’s CasT1L1aAN 
Days and Howells’ Irat1an Journeys, and 
the making of these books took me all over 
England, France, Spain and Italy in the most 
delightful fashion, and occupied the spring 
months of three or four years. If James did 
not altogether like the books, I think he 
eventually got to like me, for he used to 
ask me down to stay with him at Rye, 
only I never stayed with him or anyone else 
over night, and take me all over the town. 
He had a lovely old sea captain’s house, 
with a garden looking out on the deserted 
river and harbor, or where they used to 
be, and all of Rye was pictorial, though it 
was beginning to be overrun with arty 
and theatrical females described by James 
as ‘‘sad wantons, one of whom was not 
without a pale cadaverous grace.’’ But I 
was always afraid of him and nervous 
with him, and I made him nervous too, or 
his dog did. It was always running out to 
investigate motors tearing through the 
town, and, at last, came to a sad end. I, like 
every one, tried to hurry up his stories and 
give him a word, but that was impossible. 
He told them in his own time, in his own 
way. Later there was a scheme that I 


CHAPTER XXIX = THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


should illustrate his American ScENE, 
but that never came off. The pair of us were 
too expensive, so I was dropped, though 
I did give him some points of view from 
which to see New York—the Rubberneck 
Boat, the Jersey City Ferry, and the top of 
the Singer Building, then the highest in 
the world, and he thanked me afterwards 
for suggesting the first two. But the last 
—skyscrapers—were not for him. “‘But for 
you, they are yours to draw, but—ah— 
oh—just to think of it—difficult, yes, no, 
impossible, forty skyscrapers—each forty 
stories—each story forty windows—each 
window forty people—each person forty 
tales—My God—maddening—what could 
I, or am I—yes—certainly, no, of course— 
do with such a thing "’ I cannot get any 
nearer to it, and only those who knew him 
will understand. I saw more and heard more 
of him in the last years, when he would come 
to us and sit by the fire in the twilight in our 
flat in Adelphi Terrace, Barrie under him, 
Shaw in front of him, Galsworthy to left 
of him, Temple Thurston and the Savages 
near. Those were our neighbors. Or I talked 
to him, in the balcony of the Reform Club, 
or saw him tramp round the big lower hall 
where he used to take a constitutional. At 
that time he was living there and he and 
Sargent and Abbey and Doctor Willie 
White and I were the American members. 
One of the last times I saw him was at a 
Christmas dinner in 1912, at Sir Frederick 
Macmillan’s, when he sat beside Lady 
Macmillan, eating haggis which he de- 
scribed as the stomach of some strange 
animal, cut open, stuffed and then sewed 
up, on his head a foolscap which he had 
pulled out of a Christmas cracker. But 
the proper way to eat haggis is that at the 
Royal Scottish Academy dinners, every 
one in costume, and the thing brought in 
heralded by trumpeters—and eaten with 
tumblers of whisky. These are some traits 


{ 1891-1900 } 





HENRY JAMES - AT BAYREUTH 


and facts about James which have been 
ignored or omitted by others who never 
worked with him half as much as I. The 
Lirtte Tour IN France, of which a new 
edition has just come out, is not only the 
best guide book to that country, as I have 
said, but the best travel book about it. 
Still, Our SENTIMENTAL JoURNEY and 
Sterne’s and Stevenson’s are not so bad. 
But how many Americans know ours? 
How many Americans read? How few can 
read ? Fewer do read. They leave it to the 
radio! 

T was also arranged that I was to illus- 
I trate a book on London that James was 
to write, uniform with those by Hewlett 
and Crawford, but this was never done. 
Some of the drawings came out in Lon- 
pon by Sidney Dark, which Macmillans 
issued in 1924. 

T was somewhere about the time of the 
Be esicving Faust affair that E. and I 
cycled from Calais to what is now called, 
I believe, Czecho-Slovakia, or some such 
idiotic name of a country invented by 
idiots of politicians, for THe ILLustRATED 
Lonpon News; and on the way we passed 
through Bayreuth, and E. there, as in sev- 
etal other cities on the way, made a sen- 
sational entry. She had a fashion, in the 
beginning of her bicycling, not of dis- 
mounting from her wheel, but letting it 
run down in smaller and smaller circles, 
and then sitting down herself in the cen- 
ter with the front wheel sticking up in 
front of her. There is a drawing of this 


feat in Tue IntustrateD News. She per- 


formed it before the Sun Hotel at Bay- 
reuth, right in the face of Mark Twain, 
who could only remark, by way of greet- 
ing, ‘Lord Almighty!’’ and fly. We stayed, 
however, and saw ParsiFat, its manage- 
ment, and Frau Wagner. We took seats in 
the front row of the balcony, and the 
performance before the curtain went up 


205 


was magnificent—the hidden music in 
the great darkened temple. But after! the 
march of the chorus entering from the 
ambulatory or aisles of the Romanesque 
church, the perspective so violent that 
the first and only part of the chorus you 
could see was its feet, then its knees, then 
its stomachs, then its manly bosoms, and 
finally its faces; and then the death of the 
swan, which came falling down, stuffed 
and starched, screeching on a wire at the 
feet of the hunter; and then the forest 
which walked, only this day it wouldnt, 
and the people in it had to run to get out 
of it. And then Materna was shoved in on 
an inflated rubber couch that palpitated, 
not to say wobbled; and her encounter 
with Parsifal, who would have nothing 
to do with her but called on Die Mutter, 
and strode shouting away; and as he 
waved his arms, a button caught his wig 
and sent it sailing away up the stage. 
Still calling on his mother, he strode after 
it, picked it up, put it on his head, and 
triumphantly invoking his mother, turned 
to the audience—the wig was on hind 
side before. There was a sound never be- 
fore heard in those halls. Soon we went 
to dinner, and all too soon gents in top 
hats, umbrella in one hand and trombone 
in the other, called us to the next act. 
And when it was all over, we walked 
back through the pine woods, vocal with 
the voices of the nightingales and the 
cackle of the Cook-arranged departing au- 
dience. As we came down the hill to the 
town, we ran into David Bispham, and 
he took us to Frau Wagner’s, where, so 
far as I remember, all we did was to look 
at photograph and autograph albums, and 
then to a bier kellar, where we had a far 
better time. It was a question of spend- 
ing sixty marks on another performance 
or on old beer mugs instead. We never 
used the mugs, and they are gone. Then 


{ 1891-1900 } 





Fs “ae a a 


we left, and shortly after the perform- 
ances were stopped too, and were not re- 
sumed for a year or so; and again they were 
stopped by the War. And that was my only 
other theatrical or operatic experience, 
savea strike at the opera in London, on one 
of the rare occasions I went, when all the 
company came out on the stage at Her 
Majesty's and begged and got showers of 
pennies. But I did see Henry James at the 
play in London—a play written by Lang- 
don Mitchell, with Miss Lea and Bernard 
Partridge in the cast—and everybody was 
there, and so we were, in the stalls. I only 
remember two scenes. In the first a slave 
was escaping from some cruel persecutors 
by crossing an icy river, and we were 
given to understand the bloodhounds 


THE BRIDGE AT LUDLOW 1904 *» CHARCOAL DRAWING MADE FOR JAMES’ ENGLISH HOURS 1905 


CHAPTER XXIX «THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


were on his trail, for Mr. Partridge kept 
telling us so; and as if to prove it, a small 
pup set up a fearsome yelping in the street 
outside as the curtain fell. And in the last 
act there was to be a signal—a most im- 
portant signal—given, and Mr. Partridge 
kept asking himself and the others on the 
stage and us in the audience if we could 
not hear the signal; but we could not till 
tootity, tootity, toot went the horn of 
the coach coming back from Brighton, 
and that signal brought the play to an 
end. James’ own play, which had the dis- 
tinction of being hissed, I never saw. 
AMES’ renunciation of his American 
J citizenship was a curious performance 
very much appreciated by the British; but 
then it is only what we advocate the 


[1904 | 





HENRY JAMES - RECEIVES THE ORDER OF MERIT 


dagoes, Russian Jews and mongrels who 
have overrun this land should do. James 
was a valuable asset to Great Britain; 
these degenerates are a curse to us. The 
War caused him to do it; and if it had not 
been for the duty on works of art escaped 
by American artists remaining Americans 
there might have been more distinguished 
British painters than there are. But James’ 
plea was, I have been told, that England 









267 


had done so much for him he must give 
himself to her, and shortly before his 
death he did. The Government, to show 
its appreciation, sent him, through Lord 
Bryce, the Order of Merit; he received it 
when he was barely conscious; he made 
no sign. But later when the nurse came to 
light the lamp, as if half aware of the im- 
posing honor, he said, ‘‘Pray spare my 
blushes.’ These are my memories of James. 














SS onli Hil 


MENDING NETS AT MARTIGUES : PEN DRAWING 1890 * WHEN ON A LITTLE TOUR IN FRANCE 


[1905 | 


CHAPTER XXX: THE ROAD IN TUSCANY - MACMIL 
LANS ISSUE A GLORIFIED SERIES OF TRAVEL BOOKS -: THEY 
SELECT MAURICE HEWLETT AND JOSEPH PENNELL TO DO 
ONE OF THEM - OUR.ADVENTURES IN THE MAKING OF IT 





THE ROAD FROM THE ALPS TO ITALY + THE APPROACH TO THE LAKES * CHARCOAL DRAWING I901 


NE day Sir Frederick Macmillan 
sent for me to ask if I would 
like to illustrate a series of big 
travel books they proposed to 
issue. They would start with two—one on 
Tuscany, which Maurice Hewlett would 
write; the other on Venice Marion Craw- 
ford wanted to do. Crawford had already 
written the first volume in the series on 
Southern Italy, a great success, illustrated 
by some friend of his, whom he thought 
wonderful and we did not. But Crawford, 
for the son of an artist, was more magnif- 


[1901 } 


icent, and more innocent of the Fine Arts, 
than any author I ever met. The Hewlett 
book would be the next. There were 
lunches and dinners arranged by Macmil- 
lan, by Hewlett, and by me. We worked 
out a definite scheme, where we should 
go, what we should see, and what we 
should do. I have no hesitation in say- 
ing that I paid no attention whatever to 
Hewlett’s part, and he naturally ignored 
my suggestions. I knew that my point 
of view was quite as important as his 
and, as always, I intended to draw what 





THE ROAD IN TUSCANY : PISA AND LUCCA REVISITED 


I wanted, and he could write up to the 
drawings or not as he pleased. I must 
give him the credit of always having a 
definite idea where he was going, and 
then never going there. So, by carefully 
concealing what we really meant to do, 
we got on, and by means of an ancient 
road map of Tuscany that I picked up and 
Hewlett finally appropriated, we arranged 
in London our route—and if only the an- 
cient highways and byways had existed 
where they were marked on the map, 
everything would have been perfect. There 
were only two other matters: Hewlett did 
not want me to do the illustrations and I 
did not like his books. I never tried to 
read but one or two, and gave them up. 
He started for Florence in his big car be- 
foreme. I purchased a fiery motor bicycle 
and rode after him. It was arranged we 
should meet in Pisa and there I stopped, 
though I had been doing that all the way 
out, owing to breakdowns ; but that is 
another story. I was as usual at once ar- 
rested, this time for running over a boy 
on The Lung’ Arno, but I arranged that, 
or the landlord of the Nettuno Hotel did; 
besides, the boy was not hurt. 

NE afternoon, as I loafed, and worked, 

on the embankment, waiting for Hew- 
lett, who for days had been promising to 
come, a gorgeous carriage and pair passed 
with feathers on the horses’ heads, bells 
on their necks, and a peacock plume in the 
driver’s hat. Inside, a lady and a gentle- 
man lolled—the real Ruskinian *‘Milors 
Inglese’’ turnout up to date, for the gentle- 
man wore Edward Carpenter openwork 
sandals. The carriage turned in to the 
city. After the Angelus, after the glow 
had left the marble mountains and the 
lights had drawn the curve of the wind- 
ing river by their reflections in the water, 
I went back to the hotel and dined and 
then found Hewlett’s card. He was at a 


269 


hotel round the corner, and round I went. 
There, with him, were the Milors, and 
the carriage was Hewlett’s and they were 
his guests. We—I because of having been 
arrested, he because of his turnout—were 
the sensations of Pisa. They had driven 
from Florence by way of Empoli and Lucca 
and were going on to San Gimignano. I 
was to cover their route in the reverse 
direction. A gain, after nearly twenty years, 
I took the same road to Lucca I had driven 
over with Howells in the early spring 
morning of 1883, and again before noon 
the red-walled, tree-embowered town came 
out of the plain, the hills behind it, then 
the marble mountains towering over all. 
That day there was life in Lucca. It was 
crowded as I had never seen it. It was not 
a festa. All the hotels were full, nothing 
but a tiny room to be had; the cause, the 
trial of Mussolini, the last—and I believe 
the first—brigand who ever really existed, 
at any rate who ever was captured and 
tried in Italy. The hero of a hundred illus- 
trated tales by modern Homers, and the 
savior of the cinematograph. So famous 
is he that he is kept in a dungeon as a 
warning—or an attraction—at Volterra 
to this day. Not long ago I saw the an- 
nouncement of a new picture play, or his- 
tory of him, placarded all over Venice. I 
wonder what relation he is to the Dicta- 
tor? I did not attend the trial. All I re- 
member of it is the answer the journalists 
who filled the hotel said he gave, when 
asked where he slept, ‘‘Between the soft 
breasts of fair women,’’—a poet of a brig- 
and. Days were tranquilly passed, for every 
one was on the piazza or in the courts, 
and I was not bothered by the boys of the 
town. What I did may be seen in the book, 
Tue Roap IN Tuscany, or some of it, for, 
as usual, I did many more drawings than 
were used. And though it amused me to 
make the drawings, I should not have 


[ rgox | 


PORTRAIT OF SIR FREDERICK MACMILLAN + PAINTED BY SIR HUBERT VON HERKOMER : IN THE 
1 
POSSESSION OF SIR FREDERICK AND LADY MACMILLAN AND REPRODUCED BY THEIR PERMISSION 





THE ROAD IN TUSCANY - FROM SAN GIMIGNANO TO VOLTERRA 


shown them, for energy is a curse. Then I 
came back by Empoli, crossing a fortified 
bridge over the Arno that I had never 
seen and rode on to Certaldo, Poggibonsi, 
and up the long winding high road to 
San Gimignano, and in the middle of the 
piazza ran into Hewlett. Changed was 
the towered city; a big hotel jammed with 
those British one sees only in Italy and 
those Americans who make one ashamed 
of one’s country by aping the English. By 
judicious whacks instead of soldi, one 
may escape the pestiferous plague of boys 
after a day or so. And once the people get 
to know you, they take your side and 
hammer the children themselves. San 
Gimignano ts best from the hills round— 
at least I like it best, and that is the im- 
portant matter—and from a convent out 
feemevoitctta Gate, a mile or so, it is 
wonderful; and so it is from an old cross 
on the short cut down to Poggibonsi. I 
found this out when I first went there. 
And, now, seeing them again, I found the 
pictures by Gozzoli wonderful too. But it 
had taken me twenty years to really see 
them. There was a relief for sale that kept 
Hewlett longer. The town people, the 
padrone, the mayor, the doctor, the owner, 
and the milors were insistent that he 
should buy it; but he neither got the re- 
lief nor got rid of the owner. 
Emadeupour minds finally to leave 
4 the hotel, and the watchman who 
still cries the hours of the night, and the 
Gozzolis, and climb to Volterra. I started 
on my bicycle and found a short cut down 
the mountain. As I left, in the early morn- 
ing, the valley was filled with a great sea 
of fog, the waves of it rolled in and broke 
below the walls, and as I climbed again 
to the Volterra high road, the fog opened, 
and away above was a golden, glittering 
city, more glorious than any save New 
York—and New York is San Gimignano 


271 
glorified. There was a wine shop by the 
way and I chalked on the wall a sign for 
Hewlett, and after the hot, damp climb 
up the mountain road, the half liter, 
the fresh bread and goats’ cheese were 
a banquet. Later, Hewlett stopped the 
carriage and he raved about it too. The 
road up to Volterra is the wildest, most 
desolate in all Tuscany. On the horizon, 
high on its mountain top, is Volterra. 
The silent road winds toward it through 
bare red hills, then, as on an aréte, it 
stretches from plateau to plateau, gulfs 
on either side, and ever above, far off, 
the high-walled, grim city. There is only 
one riven ruin of a tower, one lone farm 
on the way. After hours ever up the 
twisting, turning, bare road, there is a 
tiny poplar-shadowed valley under the 
towering town. The straightest, steepest 
stretch of road in Italy leads up to it. On 
one side a precipice below; on the other, 
prisons, palaces, madhouses above, and if 
you are lucky, you may encounter a herd 
of driveling, gibbering idiots, driven by 
a keeper with a big stick, out for a walk. 
I waited at the foot of the mountain for 
the carriage which I could see coming far 
away, winding among the crevasses on 
each side the narrow road. And when it 
came, we climbed the long, straight in- 
cline to the gate, the great plain spread 
out way below, and then the Maremma 
appeared, and further off the silver Medi- 
terranean. A sharp turn, the gate, a little 
piazza, and in it the hotel, sad and grim. 
No one met us at the door. We found a 
weeping maid at last, the dining room 
was full of official looking men, but it was 
not till we had taken our rooms that we 
learned the family had typhoid fever, 
smallpox, cholera or worse, and some of 
them were dead in the house, and the 
officials were doctors and coroners. As it 
was growing dark, the horses done up, 


L1gor } 


272 


and no other hotel within twenty or 
thirty kilometers, we stayed, keeping 
mostly out of doors. But Volterra is not 
cheerful. If we went in one direction, it 
was to be greeted from one barred win- 
dow by the curses of convicts, from an- 
other by the shrieks of a mad woman ; a 
little further it was to fall almost head- 
long into a yawning gulf, down which a 
good part of the mountain top has gone. 
If we went into the churches, it was to 
see life-sized carved martyrdoms and cru- 
cifixions, so real they frightened us. And 
when we came out, it was to meet muffled, 
cloaked creatures. We could not tell if 
they were men or women, for they all 
wore the same hats, long cloaks and shoes. 
Early morning saw us off. Still, I made 
two or three drawings, for I was up at 
dawn. I went first—and the memory of 
that long coast down to Colle is with me 
still. The wind was behind, and I sailed. 
I had come to do Toke Roap To Tuscany, 
and I did it, but not with charcoal that 
day. At Colle, an endless street of palaces 
falling down a hill, a storm was brewing. 
I pushed on to Siena, up the long climb 
E. and I had shoved our tricycle twenty 
years before, and I marveled at what we 
had done—just as I marvel that any one 
still reads or remembers our cycling jour- 
neys. Just by the Casa del Diavolo, the 
storm caught me, and by the time I reached 
the Albergo Toscano—I should not have 
told its name if Hewlett had not and so 
ruined it—the bicycle, I and everything 
were soaked. But in the landlady’s blouse, 
the landlord’s pants, and the waiter’s coat 
I was able to greet the carriage full, quite 
as sodden as I. The feathers and the plumes 
draggled and dripped. Trombino, the 
driver, drooped, the only time I ever saw 
him do so, for was he not the biggest man 
in Ponte a Mensola, hired by Hewlett be- 
cause he had killed more people than there 


CHAPTER XXX +» THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


were left in the place—quite a Little Novel 
out of Tuscany. He and his stories would 
have been most useful to Hewlett, only 
the famous author’s Italian more or less 
stopped short with the Cinquecento period. 
And that was one reason why Giacomo 
and the Signora, the Milors, had places in 
his carriage. The great event in Siena was 
the arrival of Mrs. Hewlett. No, it was 
the advent of the Sienese Anglo-American 
historian. He was a wonder. We saw 
him looming up on a specially built bi- 
cycle. We could not miss seeing him. He 
was huge, immense, colossal. We met him 
as we were coming back from a picnic in 
the country where we had gone to see a 
battle field. There were no evidences of 
the battle field, save what Hewlett could 
get out of the historian’s account of it, 
and to this day I have not the faintest 
idea whether it was on that occasion 
the Florentines conquered the Sienese, or 
the Sienese captured the Florentine Car, 
which comes out in the Palio. All I know 
is that the book contains a drawing of the 
battle field, almost the only one I did as 
an illustration of anything that Hewlett 
wrote about, and I suppose there is a de- 
scription of the battle in it, but the book 
was not written till afterwards. But I do 
remember the picnic we had by a spring, » 
the charming day it was, and that we met 
the historian by the Porta Romana as we 
returned, mounted on his bicycle. 
E stayed days in Siena, and were 
v4 féted every evening by the histo- 
rian who, at a certain hour, used to an- 
nounce to Hewlett and me, one after the 
other, that we had saved his life, but how 
or when or where we never knew, but I 
do know his Chianti and Sigarre Cavour 
were good. And we were found and fol- 
lowed by the owners of the relief, who 
came all the way down from San Gimi- 
gnano with it. Luckily for them, owing 


{ 1901 | 








FLORENCE FROM THE PIAZZA MICHELANGELO I9OI : CHARCOAL DRAWING IN THE UFFIZI 
COLLECTION - MADE FOR HEWLETT’S ROAD IN TUSCANY * REPRODUCED FROM THE ORIGINAL 





| THE ROAD IN TUSCANY - ADVENTURES AT AN INN 


to a difference of some few francs, they 
failed to sell it to Hewlett, for, later, I 
heard they got as many thousands as 
Hewlett had offered them hundreds. And 
it is now the glory of some gallery if, in 
this safe world, it has not become the 
property of some other gallery or been 
destroyed or stolen. From Siena we went 
to Monte Oliveto by Buonconvento. There 
is now a new and excellent road to the 
monastery, up the steepest part of which 
Mrs. Hewlett shoved my machine—the 
same track I had shoved our tricycle up 
long ago—while I made notes. But the 
beauty of Monte Oliveto is gone—gone 
is the Abbate di Negro, though his name 
is on a tablet in the guests’ refectory—a 
tablet signed by a number of people, all 
of whom put together knew him less 
well than E. and IJ. But all that is in our 
Two Pircrms’ Procrsss, ridden and writ- 
ten years ago. Gone is the gateway. Gone 
is the pharmacy, the phials, the vases 
and the scales lie in a heap in a lumber 
room; gone many of the cypresses; gone 
the wine press and the farm; gone the old 
brothers in their white robes. The library 
is in disorder, the prey of a German pro- 
fessor, whose noisy German-Italian splut- 
tered through the empty corridors. We 
did not like it, nor the young monks 
either, who, like the small boys of Siena, 
begged for “‘franco bolli esteri’’, nor the 
Abbate who told us sternly we could only 
stay a day, and then presented a bill. We 
went out and sat down by ourselves and 
Hewlett unpacked our luncheon, intended 
for the day before, or the poor, and we 
ate it. The next morning they left, but I 
stayed on. Never was I allowed to dine 
with the monks, scarce to see them, save 
in the one unspoiled place, the great white- 
washed chapel—probably that whitewash 
covers frescoes. But the glory of Monte 
Oliveto is gone, never to return. Gone is 


270 


my Italy. I climbed up to desolate Cas- 
tagna and tried to make a drawing of the 
great crater on the far side of which the 
monastery hangs, the fertile fields hidden, 
all save the ragged avenue of black cy- 
presses leading to the ruined battlemented 
gate, ruined, they told me, to admit the 
motor of some globe-trotting royalty. 
S ADLY, in the twilight, I coasted down 
to San Giovanni d’Asso, and put up at 
the inn—one of those on the third floor 
of a house. There are few left now. To the 
late supper came three or four local celeb- 
rities and drummers, eager to know about 
“gli ski scrapi’’ of New York and their 
friends, of whom they had not heard for 
ages, not since they had left for fortune 
and America. Had I met them? Something 
was said about other foreigners having 
been there and been ill in the place, but it 
was not till the landlady, bursting in, an- 
nounced that ‘‘might an apoplexy seize 
her if she could make out what the Si- 
gnota upstairs was saying, and that the 
doctor could not make the Signorina under- 
stand that there was absolutely nothing 
the matter with her at all,’’ did I realize 
they were still there? Were they in the 
house now ? Lasked. Of course they were 
—accidente—why, they might die, that 
would be bad enough, but what was 
worse, they did not seem to have any 
money; at least, none anybody at the 
bank had seen, and there they would not 
touch it. And maybe I could talk to them, 
for she couldnt and the doctor couldnt, 
and would I try? And the next thing, a 
middle-aged matron walked into the 
room and began, “‘Say, can you talk Eng- 
lish? Because we cant talk Eytalian, and 
here we ate, Sue, my niece, and me. We 
were just going from Florence to Rome 
and they sent us to Siena, where we didnt 
want to go; nothing but pictures and old 
houses and it made Sue sick. We didnt 


f rg01} 


276 CHAPTER XXX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


want to see Siena—nothing but Florence 
and Rome—and so we took the first train 
for Rome right away, but when we got to 
this depot, Sue was just done, so we came 
up here—and can you talk English2’’ I 
said I could talk American if that would 
do. “Well, sakes alive, sure; now, if you 
dont mind, will you come and see Sue?”’ 
Sue was in bed, and very pretty she was 
too, and I must say I proved to myself and 
the doctor that my Italian was very use- 
ful for translating his advice and direc- 
tions into American. It was something 
new to me; still, I believe I succeeded, 
and, after arranging their money affairs 
and telling the bankers how to cash Amer- 
ican Express checks, I left and saw them 
no more. I sincerely hope they are not 
still in San Giovanni d’Asso—that is, for 
the sake of San Giovanni. Next morning 
I went up to San Quirico and next day to 
Pienza and then over the mountains to 
Montepulciano where, in the inn that looks 
over the valley of Lake Trasimeno, I found 
Hewlett. They had had a splendid duck- 
ing again at San Quirico, and discovered 
a noble landlord, though I had missed 
him and stayed in a dreary inn. Then we 
jogged on to Arezzo and I had another 
good look at Piero della Francesca, and 
down the Arno to Florence; and then we 
dined and that was the end of the first 
journey. 
ee Hewletts went back to London, 
but I stayed on for months in Flor- 
ence, and the results are in the book. To 
me it is delightful to learn to know a city 
intimately, to tramp its streets, to climb 
the hills about it, to walk along its quays. 
It is quiet, peaceful, endless work, this 
drawing of cities, endless hunting for sub- 
jects, endless trying to get their look, 
some days finding too many motives, 
others none at all. Starting early every day, 
lunching where I found myself, working 


all the afternoon, trudging back to a good 
dinner, then the caffe and bed; and so day 
after day, trying to get the character of 
the place. Whether I did or not, the book 
is the proof. 

HE next year, just after Easter, I started 
T ona motor tricycle which broke down 
completely at the foot of the pass before 
Spezia. So I left it in pawn and took an 
ordinary push bicycle. This spring we 
were to do the outlying parts of Tuscany. 
Hewlett had at least a dozen times planned 
the route from the old road map and other 
maps and guides, but when he changed it 
for the thirteenth or the thirtieth time, I 
determined to give hima route. Some one 
had told me of the wonderful mountain 
road between Carrara and Lucca. There 
was nothing about it in the guide books. 
No one in Spezia knew. So I determined 
to go that way. From Carrara, inhabited 
apparently altogether by the representa- 
tives of American sculptors and architects, 
and where, if you climb into the quarries, 
you get the most amazing subjects, I 
walked the next day upa pass, or rather a 
road clinging to the side of a mountain, 
coming out at last ona great castle, a per- 
fect ruin, dominating the plain, a thou- 
sand feet below. After that the road, wind- 
ing higher and higher, turned into the 
mountains and at last got so high that 


_ one could look down on the right to the 


Mediterranean and on the left to the 
Adriatic. Then it wound down to Fiviz- 
zano, a little known city in the mountains, 
and then up and down, over pass after 
pass, a splendid broad road, till late in 
the evening I came to Castelnovo di Gar- 
fagnana, at the head of the valley that 
leads down to Barga and Lucca. Nothing 
more picturesque, yet unspoiled, have I 
seen in Italy, and I imagine it is unspoiled 
yet, for the tourist or motorist of to-day 
never looks up anything for himself, 


[1902 } 





Sd i 


ee 
seg HOM 





MAURICE HEWLETT + FROM THE PAINTING BY THE HONORABLE JOHN COLLIER * BY PERMIS- 
SION OF THE FAMILY OF THE LATE MAURICE HEWLETT AND NOW IN THEIR POSSESSION 


278 


never explores, unless Hewlett has spoiled 
it for him. To us of yesterday, the joy 
was, and still is, in discovery, in the un- 
known road and the untried inn. For the 
motorist of to-day all is charted, certified, 
known; even if he camps out he camps 
ina crowd. From Castelnovo I zigzagged 
about through the Apennines, and came 
out at Lucca, and eventually the whole 
of Tuscany, from Orbetello to La Verna, 
was covered. La Verna is wonderful, but 
it is only an inn now, and I do not like 
Franciscans, their ways or their food. The 
road is appalling, the climb horrible, the 
views of the tiny Tiber, and smaller Arno 
lovely, the forest divine, filled with night- 
ingales. Monsignor Stonor, who was there 
with me, and who smoked most excellent 
cigars, did not like the monks, either, 
and, apparently, they did not like him or 
me. So I took my way down the moun- 
tain track, after a couple of days, and on 
to Florence by the ever-growing Arno 
which, like so many rivers, I have fol- 
lowed from the source to the sea. 
H EWLETT was a difficult proposition, 
as nervous and sensitive as Iam. After 
the second trip, I saw little of him. As to 
Hewlett’s books, I found them all—all 
those I tried—unreadable, as I have said, 
and one I treated as I treated a perform- 
ance of Hall Caine’s—chucked it out of 
the window. It was something about Mary, 
Queen of Scots, I believe. I know that 
very superior people and very inferior 
people pretended to like his writing, for 
I have seen most superior persons follow 
him into the hotels in Italy, where he 
stopped, and rave over him. And I have 
read in the London Timgs that copies of 
one of his books were “‘given in place of 
small change in big stores in America.’ 
Well, there must have been a slump in 
that shop if they had to give literature 
away, when probably the customers wanted 


CHAPTER XXX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


BriNGING Up FaTuer or Ir WINTER CoMEs. 
I never read Toe Roap To Tuscany—only 
bits of it. I have a standard of literature 
of my own, and Hewlett did not fit it. I 
do not like plovers’ eggs, anchovies, grape- 
fruit and cepes, and that’s what Hewlett’s 
writing was: hors d’ceuvres, appetizers 
and exotics, though not really exotic and 
not really anything; that is why it was 
liked. He knew medieval Italy, but he did 
not know his way about the land he de- 
scribed and had to have a guide when he 
went there. Personally, some days he was 
decent and some evenings he would be 
gay, as once in Siena, getting hold of the 
card of a great professor of art in a small 
American college and having it sent up to 
me in the sitting room, to see and enjoy 
the rage that came over me when I thought 
of the professor’s adding himself to our 
company, and then twitching and wink- 
ing and spoiling it all, he said, “‘I sup- 
pose you dont think you can write?” 
“Oh no, not like you anyway,” I an- 
swered—I can answer now. But mostly 
he was wrapped up in himself and he was 
often far from content with the things he 
wrote about when he encountered them 
in reality. He was always having new 
schemes which he never followed, either 
on the trip I took with him or when he 
suggested something, as when he proposed 
—he having a motor—that we should, in 
a second volume Macmillans wanted us 
to do, walk across the Lombard plain 
from side to side; or on another occasion 
in midwinter, when he rushed in to my 
place in London and wanted to carry me 
off for a walk in the forest of Fontaine- 
bleau. After these refusals I saw little of 
him, and when he gave up his house in 
London, nothing. I had a number of his 
letters; they all went in the War. 
T HE book, especially my part of it, was 
extremely well noticed, and I do not 


[1902 | 





THE ROAD IN TUSCANY - THE DRAWINGS GO TO THE UFFIZI 


think the author was too well pleased— 
they never are. Sometime afterward Com- 
mendatore Biagi, the Laurentian Librarian, 
came to see me in Londonand complimented 
me on the drawings, whereupon, to re- 
turn the compliment, I said, if he would 
care for them, he should have some of the 
Florentine series for his library. He was 
delighted and said he would write me. 
For some time I heard nothing. Then came 
an official letter from the Director of the 
Uffizi, Doctor Ricci, asking for the whole 
collection for that gallery. As I was the 
first modern artist to be so honored, I ac- 
cepted the invitation, sent the drawings, 
and they are now in the Uffizi. Naturally, 
I expected something to be done for me in 


CHARCOAL DRAWING MADE IN I9OI 


CASTIGLIONE DEL LAGO FROM THE HIGHWAY BETWEEN MONTEPULCIANO AND 
THE ROAD IN TUSCANY + MACMILLAN & CO. 1904 


79 


return. But, save an acknowledgment from 
the Italian Government, I have never re- 
ceived anything, though most of my col- 
leagues, contemporaries and imitators 
sport stars and ribbons that belong to me. 
However, my works are in the Uffizi, some 
hundreds of drawings, and if I am not 
covered with decorations, I am covered 
with the glory of knowing that the draw- 
ings will remain forever in that great gal- 
lery, or as long as it lasts, with the works 
of the great of the past. I worked on the 
Florentinedrawings two springs, and dur- 
ing the summers and autumns of the same 
years I was in Venice, making drawings 
for Crawford’s book GLEANINGsS FROM 
VENETIAN History, next in this series. 








CORTONA 


[1902 | 


CHAPTER XXXI’ MARION CRAWFORD AND VENICE 
DAYS AND NIGHTS DURING TWO SUMMERS IN THAT CITY 
THE LIFE OF THE ARTISTS WHO CAME THERE AND THE 
PEOPLE WHO LIVED THERE - AND WHAT WE DID THERE 





THE HALL OF THE GLOBES - 
DRAWING IQOI 


ARION CRAWFORD turned up 
soon after I got to Venice in 
June, 1901—Just after the Cam- 
panile fell. This year and the 
next I spent the spring in Tuscany, work- 
ing on the Hewlett book, and when it got 
too hot I came up to Venice and passed 
the summer and autumn there. Crawford 
was a magnificent giant who lived up to 
his magnificence. Still, he was one of the 


[1901 } 





SALA OF THE GRAND COUNCIL DOGE'S PALACE 
* PRINTED IN GLEANINGS FROM VENETIAN HISTORY * MACMILLAN & CO. 








@ 
a 


* CHARCOAL 


expatriated who, though they pass their 
lives in Italy and talk the language per- 
fectly, know nothing really of the country 
and the people. How many of these sad 
cases have I seen. I had met him once or 
twice before.On one occasion he dinedata 
little club and amongst the other guests 
were—and——,of whom Harold Frederic 
who was of the same type, said, ‘Well, 
after I had a few drinks I could not tell 








BY PERMISSION OF MACMILLAN & CO. 


F. MARION CRAWFORD °* PASTEL BY C. M. ROSS 


282 


which was myself and which was either 
of the others, for we were as like as four 
twins.’’ I lunched with Crawford in his 
hotel, when he arrived, and I saw at once 
he did not approve of me any more than 
I liked the tourists’ hotel lunch—and 
how well he could have lunched round the 
corner. Afterwards he introduced me to 
his gondolier who knew everything about 
Venice and would take you to exactly the 
spot where the Cavaliere Cook, or the 
Illustrissimo Ruskin, or some other bore, 
had made his drawings, and bring prints 
and volumes from under the seat to prove 
it. Crawford was impressed by this gon- 
dolier. I hated him, and to my great satis- 
faction one day in a storm we were ship- 
wrecked on a log near the Casa degli 
Spiriti and I saw him no more, save once 
steering one of the bissoni in a regatta. 
Crawford too tipped all the people with 
boat hooks at the landings, when the 
Venetian tradition is to thank them, and 
that branded him. But he got it one day. 
A boy begged from him in Venetian which 
Crawford did not understand, and Craw- 
ford retorted in Neapolitan, whereupon 
the boy replied in good Italian, ‘“What’s 
he trying to talk, theugly, big foreigner?”’ 
Crawford made a list of things for me to 
draw, as all authors do. I did those I liked 
and ignored the ones I did not. Some were 
impossible, others ridiculous—to have a 
sculptor for a father does not make one an 
artist, though it did produce a successful 
story-teller. Crawford, in the few days he 
was in Venice—though he had scarcely 
been there before, he told me, and he was 
quite surprised when he went to Murano, 
the scene of one of his stories—rarely came 
to the Piazza or, if he did, foregathered 
with Hop Smith, I cannot say F. Hopkin- 
son Smith. 

LL those hot afternoons after lunch 

we loafed in the Piazza and had our 


CHAPTER XXXI - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


coffee, till it cooled off, till the shadows 
crept across the pavement and up the 
church where the flags flew and the mo- 
saics glittered in the setting sun—and 
those hot evenings too, every evening, for 
the Piazza in summer was a great salon, 
a great drawing-room, and everyone went 
there save the tourists who think they 
do and the Americans, like Crawford, 
who are superior to it. But after dinner, 
when the band played we sauntered over 
from the Panada and walked with the 
Venetians, in the old days the men with 
their big black hats, the girls with their 
long black shawls, both in their clattering 
wooden shoes, if they did not wear slip- 
pers. Round and round they went, an 
endless procession, the whole evening. 
We passed by Florian’s—we never had 
our coffee there, that was left to the Eng- 
lish and the Germans—on round the end 
of the square, and then back till we came 
to the Quadri, tables spread out, up and 
down and all about, and there at one table 
would be Duveneck or Bunce, and we 
would join them, and others would join 
us, and two or three tables would be filled. 
And the music of the city band would 
crash and echo as music does nowhere 
else, and some nights the Duke of Abruzzi 
would stroll out of the palace and the 
band would start up the National An- 
them, or a Garibaldian would appear and 
we had the ‘‘Inno,’’ and in those first . 
years they used to tell how Wagner would 
come and when the conductor saw him 
the band would either play something of 
his or stop and salute him. And in be- 
tween were the cries of the caramei men 
and the roses of the flower girls. And the 
crowd at our tables would get bigger and 
bigger. And, once in a while on his way 
further north, Vedder would turn up from 
Rome and tell us how he painted flying 
angels. When they would not stand and 


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CAMPIELLO DELLE ANCORE - A STUDY OF THE REAL DAILY LIFE OF VENICE » PEN DRAW- 
ING I90I + PRINTED IN GLEANINGS FROM VENETIAN HISTORY -+ MACMILLAN & CO. 








Ame if 





MARION CRAWFORD AND VENICE 


fly, he laid them ona mattress on the floor, 
posed with their drapery as he wanted it, 
and then he rigged up a hammock over 
them, got in, lay down on his tummy, his 
canvas on the floor too, and with long 
handled brushes painted away, and so 
well did it work that the models went 
fast asleep and he had to prod them with 
his mahl stick when it was time to take a 
rest. And Larkin Mead would journey up 
from Florence and dear old Burns over 
from Philadelphia, for the summer when, 
in those years, the tourist never came— 
Burns with his ‘“‘Cheer up, the worst is 
yet to come,’’ when anyone was blue. 
And the stories—it was there I heard the 
tea story: how someone’s train was held 
up in the West in a blizzard till the drink 
ran out, and then, just as the passengers 
thought they must starve, they saw an 
ancient native with two big market bas- 
kets wading towards them. And, finally, 
he got to the train, and climbed aboard, 
and said, ‘Friends, this is a prohibition 
state, so seeing how youarefixed I brought 
you some tea in bottles, and its real good 
tea and costs one dollar a bottle.’’ And 
instantly the baskets were emptied of the 
bottles, and his pockets were filled. ‘‘Now, 
friends,’’ said he as the corkscrews came 
out, “as this is a prohibition state I hope 
you wont drink this tea till J am out of 
sight.’ And he started home through the 
drifts, never looking back till he reached 
the last rise, there he turned, waved his 
hand, disappeared, and every cork was 
drawn. And it was tea. ‘‘Oh, well,’’ said 
someone, ‘‘lets drink the health of Mrs. 
Pennell Hum,’ said Burns, “I never 
thought to see Mrs. Pennell drunk on the 
Piazza.’’ And between times we talked 
shop and settled the affairs of the Art 
World till the music stopped. A couple of 
years ago I went back. There was not a 
soul I knew, no music but once a week 


- PIAZZA STORIES 


285 


the band, jazz and tourists everywhere. 
As I had been running round Italy each 
spring, doing the Hewlett and James and 
Howells books, I would arrive with ad- 
ventures of my own, and these also were 
all told between the music. We were quiet 
enough when the band played, and the 
Piazza was a dream on festa nights, after 
a great affair like the Redentore when we 
had crossed the bridge of boats to the 
Giudecca, or after a regatta, Venice all 
gorgeous color, every old family hang- 
ing its tapestries from the windows, the 
bissoni, the city boats sweeping by, clear- 
ing the course once the firemen, with 
their hose squirting at the crowded gon- 
dolas, had opened a way, and the racing 
boats followed, and after dark there would 
be illuminations, colored fires in the cam- 
panile or behind San Giorgio and the 
Redentore, or in the lagoon rockets. Or 
we would walk in the Piazzetta and along 
the Riva, the music of the city band and 
other bands mingling with the songs of 
singers afloat and ashore—not done for 
the tourists, but by the Venetians for 
themselves because they loved it. And 
then to bed—though the caffes kept open 
all night and the singing went on till 
dawn brought the fishermen in with their 
endless yells and endless clatter on the 
pavements. And then we started another 
day, working from our own rooms on the 
Riva where we lived. 

RAWFORD naturally did not like my 
C drawings and rejected one of the Bridge 
of Sighs at night. After he left Venice, 
where, for his book, I spent two summers, 
I do not think I ever saw him again. He 
never wrote me a word about the book, 
but the Italian Government bought some 
of the drawings, among them, the rejected 
Bridge of Sighs. As I have said, all this 
was just after the Campanile fell, and in 
all the years while it was down Venice 


[ rgor } 


286 


was dead or dormant, and did not wake 
up till it was rebuilt. Though the same 
Hop Smith offered to put in elevators for 
nothing if they would let him have the 
returns for ten years, the Venetians put in 
the elevators themselves and they and the 
Biennial Exhibition have resurrected the 
city. Changed is it from the time when 
the Syndic allowed a flowery island to be 
turned into a powder mill, and when the 
artists protested, said he hoped soon no 
artist would want to come there. Then 
the authorities tried to make it a railway 
center, a manufacturing town, a naval 
base, but it was not till they turned to art 
that it revived again. Hop Smith—F. Hop- 
kinson Smith, whom I never could stand 
personally nor his writing either, save 
COLONEL CARTER OF CARTERSVILLE, Was 
always turning up in Venice to make 
water colors each summer. He never asso- 
ciated with mere artists, but he worked, 
at any rate, after his lights, and very 
cleverly, and he had another redeeming 
quality: though he prided himself, I be- 
lieve, on having passed twenty summers 
in Italy, I do not think he had twenty 
words of Italian, half of Bunce’s ‘‘linguis- 
tic acquirement”’ and half of his artistic 
feeling also.One day in a brand-new check 
suit and a helmet, a Turkish decoration 
and spats, Smith arrived in his gondola 
at the Piazzetta and the gondolier un- 
packed Hop’s—the only name he was 
known by—paint box and water bucket 
and sketchblock, and put them down by a 
lamp-post, and as Hop moved his camp 
stool so as to have the lamp-post as a rest 
for his back, a policeman came and waved 
him off. I was passing and Hop cried out, 
“What's the matter with the Dago? I’ve 
been here twenty years and never been 
treated like this. What’s he saying?”’ I 
asked the policeman, who replied, ‘‘Yes, 
we all know the illustrious and distin- 


CHAPTER XXXI - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


guished foreigner who was probably here ° 
before I was born, but I noticed that he 
has got a new suit of clothes on to-day, 
and as the lamp-post was painted this 
morning, why, if he leans against it, the 
clothes will probably be spoiled.’’ As 
somewhat of a crowd had gathered, Hop 
departed, when I translated the policeman’s 
advice, amid applause in which he did not 
join. It was almost as good as Bunce’s 
reply to the Englishman who found him 
early one morning on the Public Garden 
wall, painting moonlights by sunrise. 
“Why, Mr. Bunce, how long have you 
been here?’’ said the Briton, on his way 
to fall out of the sandola he was learning 
to row.’ ‘Forty years,’’ said Bunce. Or the 
story of Bunney, living there like Bunce, 
painting for years San Marco for Ruskin 
from the top of a high stool, and a wicked 
artist one day pinning a card on his coat 
tail, ‘I am totally blind,’’ and there are 
endless other legends like these. 
B ut if I was to start telling Venetian 
stories, I should never stop, E. has 
told many in her Nicuts. But not many 
read that book. Will they read this? Those 
two summers were delightful. I would 
wake and look out of my windows on the 
Riva to see what sort of a day it was 
going to be, and if I liked it, I went up to 
the Caffe Orientale and read the Venetian 
papers—they were a proper size, four pages, 
and contained more news than an Ameri- 
can blanket sheet. One morning I saw in 
them the shooting of McKinley, and an- 
other that the Kaiser had arrived, and, to 
me most important, that the King of Italy 
had bought my etchings at the Exhibi- 
tion, but even then they gave me no deco- 
ration—only cash. After my caffe latte 
and little cakes, I started for the spot I 
had determined on the day before, either 
afoot, or on the steamboat, the vaporetto; 
no one, unless he owns it, ever takes a 


[x901 | 





MARION CRAWFORD AND VENICE - WANDERINGS 


gondola in Venice to work from. When I 
reached my previously chosen spot, if the 
light was right and I felt right, I began 
and if possible finished my charcoal or 
pastel or etching. I knew exactly what I 
wanted to do, but rarely knew whether I 
could do it, and I never did it as I wished. 
When I had finished, it was time to lunch 
and in some trattoria, with great brass 
cauldrons in the window behind the cur- 
tains or green lattice screens, great brass 
plaques on the walls, I would lunch, and 
lunch well. There was always a caffe near, 
and after another hour there the light was 
right to start another subject, maybe from 
the caffe, if not I walked till I found 
one. And so I have walked and worked 
all over Venice. As evening came, I turned 
towards the Piazza, dining either at the 











THE BUSY LITTLE CANAL THAT ONLY THE VENETIANS KNOW ° 


287 


Bella Venezia, Citta di Firenze or the 
Panada, but if far away, stopping at the 
first restaurant I liked the looks of, and 
then, after coffee again, either on moon- 
light nights wandering and drawing the 
magic city if I found something, or com- 
ing back to the Piazza if I found nothing, 
where I knew there would be a crowd of 
artists at the Quadri, and so I passed my 
days—and often at night when I got home 
there would be at midnight even more 
wonderful subjects on the lagoon to do 
out of my windows. And often it was as 
the dawn came that I found it was time 
to begin another day’s work before I went 
to sleep. But one can always sleep in a 
caffe in the hot noontime after lunch. It 
was a lovely little life which I lived those 
years—in the dear dead city in the sea. 
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[1902 | 


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THE HARBOR GENOA « LITHOGRAPH * COMING BACK FROM ITALY I WOULD STOP AND WORK AT 
SUBJECTS I HAD SEEN ON THE WAY OUT AND THIS PRINT WAS MADE FROM MY HOTEL IN GENOA ; 











BUILDING THE WOOLWORTH : LITHOGRAPH - I WOULD RUN OVER TO NEW YORK AND FIND 


DRAWING STONE AND PRINT IN THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM 


MOTIFS LIKE THIS 


CHAPTER XXXII? KING EDWARD’S FUNERAL - THE 
DEATH AND FUNERAL OF HIS MAJESTY - DRAWING AND 
PRINTING THE SCENES IN THE CHRONICLE - NEWS - TIMES 


NE night there was a ring at 

the doorbell and there was the 

Assistant Editor of Tur Inius- 

TRATED Lonpon News. ‘‘The 
King [Edward VII] is dying at Bucking- 
ham Palace. Will you go and draw the 
scene outside the Palace?”’ It was dark and 
rainy but, grumbling that kings should 
die in such weather, I went. There were 
few people about—not a crowd—in the 
true English fashion, no excitement. The 
Palace was black, only one or two lights 
behind windows. The flag was flying. 
There was a bulletin on a gate—the last 
doctor’s report. Frequent carriages came 
and went. The King had died hours before, 
but his death was not announced till after 
I left, about midnight; for though kings 
and queens of England may have birth- 
days when they choose, they must die 
when it suits the Government. The draw- 
ing, made by the lights of the cab, was 
finished and turned in that night. Of 
course, the Editor did not like it, the 
photo-engraver said he could not repro- 
duce it, the printer that he could not 
print it. Knowing, however, what I was 
about and more than the whole lot put 
together, I told the Editor he must pay 
for it and give it back to me. Then he 
took it. It was reproduced and printed 
perfectly, and was the only record of the 
scene—or the best one by far—made at 
the time on the spot. Next day the bell 
rang again. First, there came Tue Ixtus- 
TRATED News for other drawings of the 
lying-in-state and the funeral procession; 
Tue Darty Curonicre for the interior of 
Westminster Hall; and then Tur Times 
and Tue ItLustratep News for the funeral 
procession. I accepted all the commis- 
sions and all had to be done within the 


week—the lying-in-state in a few hours, 
the funeral procession in a few minutes— 
and all were to be double or full pages. Of 
course it was a compliment that, despite 
the fact that Great Britain possesses three 
Royal Academies, a system of Govern- 
ment education, and endless schools for 
training illustrators, when anything was 
wanted they had to get Paul Renouard or 
myself—a Frenchman or an American. 
Now they mostly use photographs to re- 
cord important events. This was not my 
first experience of royal funerals. When 
she who is known as ‘‘the Old Queen”’ 
died, or rather when it was known she 
might die, THz Dairy Maixcame to me. I 
was to do the scene in St. George’s Chapel. 
They said I could not get in before the 
ceremony, so I started the big page froma 
photograph of the Chapel. I had never 
drawn the interior or only a bit of it. Pre- 
viously a room was taken for me at the 
White Hart Hotel, Windsor, where I 
could see the procession from the station 
to the Castle; there was to be a seat for 
me in the organ loft of St. George's 
Chapel; as soon as the ceremony was over 
I should rush back to the hotel, finish the 
drawing, and a swift motor would fetch 
it and me to the office in London. The 
only hitch was that Tue Dairy Mair 
could not get a seat in the Chapel. I did 
not do the drawing, but I believe some- 
body else, who was not there, did a ‘‘pure 
genius work’’, as we used to say, ‘‘out of 
his head.’’ And I have no doubt the Darty 
Maru readers were better satisfied with 
that feat of faking than they would have 
been with my rendering of the real scene, 
if I had drawn it. 
aps first thing at the King’s funeral 
was to get into Westminster Hall. I 


[1910 | 





of, 


st Bs 


4 


Shy 


nS ts, 


A : a o ee . ca i : zs Ren a aes % Neel 
BUCKINGHAM PALACE + CHARCOAL DRAWING MADE THE NIGHT THE KING DIED MAY 6 
I91O * PUBLISHED IN THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS IN THE NEXT ISSUE MAY 14 





292 


wanted to have my drawing ready as soon 
as possible, an hour or so after the public 
lying-in-state began. I rushed round to 
the Lord Chamberlain’s, the Ear] Mar- 
shal’s, the Heralds’, the Garter King-at- 
Arms’, and other such people, but they 
could or would do nothing; the papers 
could do nothing; so I had to do some- 
thing. Within a few hours I alone among 
artists in England was in Westminster 
Hall and at work, and, well, I may as 
well say it, as an architect's assistant and 
sometimes as a British workman. But the 
drawings were done. There were two of 
them completed as the workmen got on 
with the great bier and the decorations. | 
knew the effect would be fine and had 
two days to get it. When the Earl Mar- 
shal or the Duke of Connaught, or the 
Archbishop of Canterbury was about, and 
they came frequently to rehearse their 
parts, I played, when I had time to take 
my coat off, a British workman standing 
round; when I had not time to get my 
coat off, an architectural person, with a 
T square and a sheet of clean paper over 
my big sketch block. But at times a mys- 
terious whisper came to get out, to hide, 
for not a single other artist had permis- 
sion to come in. This was, for some rea- 
son, the doing of Queen Alexandra, who 
had refused all artists permission to draw 
in the Hall. It became known, however, 
that I had been inside, and I was inun- 
dated with requests to see my drawings 
by people who had not been in, yet had 
done theirs. The cards for the Press came, 
for the Press was to be allowed to see the 
coffin being borne into the Hall, and they 
were, as usual, all jammed into a pen, in 
acorner. I was made to give up my ticket 
for the function, yet I was there all the 
same—how, is my affair. I had already 
made two drawings, one from either end 
of the great Hall, so I could use the more 


CHAPTER XXXIIT- THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


effective, and they were both finished all 
but the figures. This is the only way to do 
such drawings; but how many artists have 
the brains or the ability to work in this 
way? The same afternoon the public was 
to be admitted ; but an hour or so before 
the crowd of artists and photographers 
stood at the closed doors of the Hall. 
Every little while they opened to emit 
some Royalty, Nobility, Excellency or 
Member of Parliament, for the ceremony 
of the arrival of the coffin in the Hall had 
been preceded by a big lunch in the House. 
Finally the doors were opened and in 
rushed the most disgraceful rabble of re- 
porters, artists, photographers, Royal 
Academicians, illustrators, I ever saw. It 
was scandalous, undignified, shameful, 
yet permitted. Like a flock of sheep they 
made for the press pen, then they rushed 
at the coffin, all trying to get the same 
point of view at the same time. Not a 
single one had an idea in his head, and 
they tumbled over each other in the hope 
to steal some one else’s, for they had to 
do something inan hour; but not one of 
them had the brains to try to get an im- 
pression of the bigness, the dignity, the 
solemnity of the great bier on which the 
coffin lay, guarded by the silent, rigid fig- 
ures of the soldiers, Gentlemen-at-Arms, 
and Yeomen of the Guard, the only living 
actors in the great Hall which holds so 
much of English history. All these artists 
tried for were the petty details of uni- 
forms they could have seen, or got photo- 
graphs of, at any time. I simply had to 
put the figures in place in my drawing. I 
only brought a tiny sketchbook and did 
this at once, then for twenty minutes 
plagued the hard-working artists and got 
in the way of the photographers, went 
home, put the figures in my otherwise fin- 
ished drawing and in an hour the boy 
from THE CHRONICLE, who was waiting, 


[1910 } 








EDWARD VII: FROM THE 


PAINTING BY BASTIEN LEPAGE ° 


PERMISSION OF AD BRAUN & CO. 


294 


was off with it to the office. I followed 
him soon. The drawing was photo- 
gtaphed, reproduced and printed in the 
next morning's paper—and printed ex- 
cellently at thirty thousand an hour— 
and was admitted by all to give by far the 
best idea of the ceremony. It was copied 
all over the world, stolen mostly, for 
though THe Curonicte paid me well, 
neither they nor I got anything from the 
thieves who stole it, with acknowledg- 
ment or without. 

ut there was more work. Two or three 
Bas elapsed during the lying-in-state, and 
then the funeral would be held. Tae Times, 
for the first time in its history, wanted a 
full-page drawing, and Tue InLustraTED 
Lonvon News a double page. As I said, 
I took both commissions. I had no time 
to think, only to act. As to positions, I 
was offered rooms and balconies and win- 
dows, and refused them. I knew what Iwas 
about. There was only one place and there I 
was going—the Local Government Board 
Office, at the foot of Parliament Street, 
ovetlooking the whole scene. And the 
Local Government Board was administered 
by John Burns, and I knew him, as I did 
almost all the rest of the Government, and 
so would have no trouble with Earl Mar- 
shals and Lord Chamberlains, or rather 
no trouble in outwitting them. So I went 
to John Burns and he at once told me I 
could come to his office, and just where 
I should see the funeral the best. John 
Burns I have found, after many years, to 
be a very amusing and interesting person; 
but like one of his predecessors, Glad- 
stone, one who knows everything about 
everybody’s business, except mine. I told 
him what I wanted—to see Westminster 
Hall and the House of Parliament, with 
the Palace Yard, and the procession start- 
ing up Parliament Street, and that I wanted 
to see it from the corner tower. He said 


CHAPTER XXXII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


he had nothing to do with that, it was 
out of his control, but he knew no one 
could go there. So he took me to exactly 
the window from which he said I could 
see everything. Naturally, I could see 
nothing ; but I said nothing. I waited till 
he left and then went up to the top of the 
building, to the Government architect’s 
office, and there I worked quietly for a 
whole day, drawing all the architecture; 
and save for the procession, everything 
was finished. Meanwhile, I found the win- 
dow I was at would be filled with all the 
Sisters, cousins and aunts of the archi- 
tect, and that I would see nothing. In 
the corner of the tower was a stairway 
leading to the roof. This, I was told, be- 
longed, not to the Local Government 
Board but to the Board of Works—such 
is British red tape; but I had not the time 
nor did I mean to take the trouble to un- 
knot it. Icut it. And the next morning at 
five I was up and on my way down Parlia- 
ment Street, already filled with soldiers 
backed by the crowd. As I had tickets 
and passes I got through into the building 
upstairs ; as I knew there would be, crowds 
of clerks and their families were at every 
window. A seat had been reserved for me 
quite at the back, where I could see noth- 
ing; but certain people were climbing the 
winding stairs to the roof. There was a 
narrow trap door to squeeze through at 
the top, and one British matron ahead of 
me stuck. I thought that was the end, but 
she was eventually pulled down and I got 
up. Only a few others came up and they 
lay flat, afraid of being seen. Of course, we 
were seen, and up came the Government. 
Everybody, including myself, was ordered 
off, and everybody, except me, went. I 
threw Tue Times at the Government and 
said I would not stir for them, or the en- 
tire British ministry, and if they wanted 
to try iton, they could bring up John Burns, 


[ 1910 } 











PREPARING WESTMINSTER HALL FOR THE LYING IN STATE: FROM THE ORIGINAL 


PUBLISHED IN THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS 


MAY 14: 


CHARCOAL DRAWING 


296 


who was rushing about in a cocked hat 
and feathers, looking very uncomfortable, 
or another gentleman, even more gorgeous, 
who really had charge of all Government 
roofs, and for them alone would I go. And 
again I threw Tue Times at them and, for 
once and only once, it had an effect and I 
stayed, guarded by police, to see that the 
British roof was not insulted, stolen or 
tampered with, and I had the whole tower 
to myself. I alone could have done what 
I did. That is why I, an American, was 
asked to record this chapter of British 
History. 

ow [had time to look about me. It 
N was eight o'clock, the troops were 
forming up round the Square and in Par- 
liament Street. The crowds, too, swarmed 
everywhere; as usual, the police lost their 
heads. At one moment the people would 
be driven away and the next permitted to 
run all over the place. Finally, however, 
save a few, they were driven out of the 
Square. Slowly the Royalties and Envoys, 
mounted and in gorgeous coaches, began 
to come in groups; then came the Queen 
and the other members of the Royal Fam- 
ily in state coaches, in one of which, I be- 
lieve, was the most unpicturesque figure 
of Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, the only fig- 
ure in plain black ; but then nothing would 
make Mr. Roosevelt either dignified or 
picturesque or enable him to play his part 
properly in a spectacle. The mourners all 
passed into Palace Yard and then entered 
the Hall, where a short service was held. 
Finally, at eleven, after six hours of wait- 
ing, the coffin, borne by Guardsmen, was 
brought out and placed on a gun carriage, 
and then the chief mourners came and 
grouped themselves round it. Meanwhile 
in the middle of Parliament Street, the 
massed bands gathered and, as the gun car- 
tiage started, broke into a wailing dirge, 
and, over all, tolled the mournful bell, 


CHAPTER XXXII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Big Ben, of Westminster every minute, 
while guns boomed between. As it started, 
the procession was but small and most im- 
pressive. First the bands, the pipers play- 
ing a lament, a few Admirals and Gener- 
als, the Earl Marshal of England, the gun 
carriage, a Battenberg prince, the King’s 
charger, the King’s dog; then the new 
King, the German Emperor and the Duke 
of Connaught riding abreast, the German 
Emperor the only one every inch a king, 
followed by a crowd of glittering Roy- 
alties; last the state carriages, first the 
Queen’s, a few Life Guards; that was all. 
And slowly the cortége passed up toward 
the Horse Guards, the wailing dirge dying 
away as the band turned under the arch. 
It was so impressive that I hardly did any- 
thing, for my heart was in my mouth, as it 
always is at such times; but I made notes 
and, on comparing my finished drawing 
—I mean the details—with a photograph 
taken in Parliament Street, find I made only 
one mistake—I had the officers’ swords, 
saluting, point to the ground, when they 
were presented, but I changed that easily. 
It was an extraordinary feat to get that 
whole procession in my head, for of its 
formation I knew nothing, as it started 
and passed out of sight in five minutes; 
it was simply a prodigious feat of trained 
memory. I forgot one thing. I forgot all 
about doing the double page for Tue 
ItLustraTED News, and only remembered 
it when I found the boy waiting at home 
for the drawing. But the thing was to 
get home. Parliament Street was impas- 
sable. The police, maudlin, kept the peo- 
ple on the narrow pavement and allowed 
the soldiers to bivouac all over the broad 
street. I forced my way to Storey’s Gate 
and got into the Park, crowded with 
officers, Army, Navy and Reserve forces, 
especially the latter, in any sort of uni- 
form, from George IV to Johannisberg 


[1910 } 





ee ee a 





IN WESTMINSTER HALL: JUST BEFORE THE PEOPLE MASSED 


*S COFFIN 


THE KING 


AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS WERE ADMITTED +: LITHOGRAPH MADE MAY 17: EN- 


GRAVED AND PRINTED IN THE DAILY CHRONICLE AS A FULL PAGE THE NEXT DAY 


298 


Jagers, all, like myself, trying to get out; 
but the Horse Guards were closed, the 
Duke of York's steps shut, the road by 
Marlborough House barred. I could not 
even push towards the soldiers lining it 
or get near enough to ask permission to 
pass, so great was the jam. Back I worked 
my way to the narrow gate, alone open, 
where is now the Admiralty Arch. Thou- 
sands of people were jammed there, for no 
reason save police stupidity, when sud- 
denly a column of police, the pipe major 
of the Scots Guards, the pipers, the Colonel 
and the regiment, came up. By sheer weight 
they forced the mass of people aside. As 
the pipe major passed, I jumped in be- 
hind him, and before the police could get 
at me or the Colonel recover from the 
shock, I was through the gate into Char- 
ing Cross. When I got home, it was near 
three; the drawing had to be done by six, 


CHAPTER XXXII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


and the boy from Tur Times was waiting. 
I had a glass of port and a biscuit. I sat 
down to put in the procession and fell 
fast asleep. They let me alone for an hour, 
but the drawing left the house when prom- 
ised. There was a row with Tue Izius- 
TRATED News for my failure to do theirs. 
Tue Times certainly was gamey, but, as 
certainly, their page reproduction was the 
worst Iever saw. Naturally, I was blamed 
for it, but the fault was altogether at 
Printing House Square, where, despite all 
their machinery, time and paper, they did 
the worst printing of illustrations in Eng- 
land, as may be seen, when they used 
them in those days. Now they print their 
illustrations very well. I have not the 
faintest idea who wrote the description. 
I had enough to do those days without 
being bothered with-authors. Besides, an 
illustration should illustrate the subject. 








WHITEHALL UP WHICH THE FUNERAL PASSED ON JUNE 20, 1910 - ETCHING 


Lr910 } 








ve a ee 
& oe ae mn ae Se a ee} 
THE FUNERAL PROCESSION PASSING UP PARLIAMENT STREET - PEN DRAWING MADE 
MAY 20: PRINTED IN THE LONDONTIMES MAY 22 THE FOLLOWING MONDAY MORNING 


CHAPTER XXXIII: THE KING’S CORONATION - I AM 
INVITED TO ASSIST AT THE PREPARATIONS REHEARSALS 
AND CORONATION OF HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE THE 
FIFTH IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY FOR THE DAILY CHRONICLE 


OME months after the funeral of 

Edward VII came another ring at 

the doorbell, and there again was 

the Assistant Editor of Tur Dairy 
CHRONICLE, wanting to know if I would 
do the Coronation of the present King 
George, the date of which was not fixed. 
He would commission some big man to 
write it up. But would I draw it, and for 
them alone? After much parleying, it was 
arranged that if I was in London I would, 
provided I could see everything, go to the 
rehearsals in the Abbey and attend the 
ceremony, having a seat in the organ loft 
so that my drawing could be made on the 
spot, at the time, and be historic. I both- 
ered no more about it for months, and 
only a few venturesome papers bothered 
me, for the idea spread abroad that I was an 
expensive luxury. I know nothing about 
this; all I know is that I am worth what 
Task and will not work unless I get what 
I want and the way I want it. The months 
went on. I did not go away, and I cared 
less and less to be bothered with the affair, 
which seemed to grow more and more diffi- 
cult, and no permission apparently could 
be obtained to get me into the Abbey. At 
the American Embassy I heard they were 
receiving a thousand applications a day 
for invitations and they had none to give 
out. The newspaper offices were flooded 
with requests from people ready to pay 
fabulous prices to be allowed to write de- 
scriptive articles, and the editors were 
running around trying to secure seats for 
themselves and their families. The entire 
American Press, I was told, had three 
seats, and three thousand applications for 
them. I simply waited. One day came a 


card to view the Abbey, nearly ready for the 
ceremony. I went there, passing through 
a narrow wooden door. I saw the outside 
wooden stairs, galleries and annexes which 
only needed a match to set the whole his- 
tory of England in a blaze. Then I passed 
through the robing room, put up by the 
Board of Works, really fine in its way, 
despite the sneers of Academic architects 
and architectural experts who could not 
have done it half so well. In the nave from 
the west door to the choir were raised 
rows of seats on both sides. Above them 
galleries extending back to the walls had 
been built in the aisles, and that was all. 
The broad passage up the center of the 
nave was covered with heavy, blue car- 
pet, leading to the altar. Blue and white 
hangings with the Royal Arms on them 
weré on the fronts of the galleries. The 
floors of these were carpeted with creamy 
white stuff and on them were placed copies 
of Chippendale chairs. The dark red col- 
umns of the nave were not hidden, nor 
were there banners, flags, or hangings to 
break the tracery of the roof; save for the 
simple blue and white, the nave was dec- 
orated only with its own majesty and 
mystery. The choir stalls were not touched 
at all. The organ loft, however, was more 
than doubled and towered to the roof, com- 
pletely preventing those who would sit in 
the nave, some thousands, from seeing the 
ceremony. In the transepts, seats mounted 
to each rose window ; in the crossing stood 
the two thrones, facing the altar, the King 
and Queen thus having their backs to their 
people. Both were raised above the pave- 
ment, the Queen’s seat a step or two lower 
than the King’s, the steps outlined by 


[1911] 








pe hihi hE gs 


aa ig eh ie 





From the copyright photograph by H. A. Judd Co. 


HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE V IN HIS CORONATION ROBES - PORTRAIT BY C, R. SIMS 


302 CHAPTER XXXIII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


golden rods. In the choir were a few tap- 
estries hung from the clerestory in the last 
bays, and there were some gorgeous rugs, 
and in the center the stone coronation seat 
brought from behind the altar. On the right 
side, two other seats and prie-dieux for 
the King and Queen faced by two wooden 
benches. The impressiveness was in the 
simplicity, while the deep rich blue of the 
carpets and hangings made the proper back- 
ground to the glittering, gold, rose and 
ermine spectacle that was to be given on 
them. I carried with me four large sheets 
of lithographic paper, my chalks and a 
drawing board, and when I got into the 
choir I found it filled with the artists of 
the universe. In the midst, behind a six- 
foot canvas, was Tuxen, the Danish Court 
Painter; at his side the English Academic 
Bacon, in black skullcap, making a six- 
inch sketch for the official British picture, 
and looking as if he was wound up, though 
I was sure when the Royal record was fin- 
ished it would contain a portrait of every 
One, so intensely correct that all the feel- 
ing of the function would be gone; and 
Gillot, the official French Painter, in the 
stalls—in the seat of the French Envoy, 
but he was thrown out of that at the cere- 
mony—was half done already ; he had prob- 
ably started his work in Paris. 

VERY paper in the world with a Lon- 
ip don correspondent was represented, 
and crowds came from all over the world, 
and every one was following like sheep a 
member of the Earl Marshal’s staff, who 
was explaining what the King would do 


and where the Queen and the Archbishop’ 


and the other Royalties and Envoys and 
Excellencies and Dignitaries and the rest 
of them were to stand. Every artist had 
a little notebook which he took out of 
the pocket of his frock coat and made 
dots in; putting down his top hat to do 
so. Then they all stood in a line in front 


[ro11 | 


of the altar to get the King’s face from a 
point from which they never would be al- 
lowed to see it. Of the hundreds of artists, 
the official three were the only ones who 
had any idea of composition, of making 
a record of the function in its bigness and 
grandeur. The method of the crowd was to 
listen to statements from a Court official 
as to where people would stand, where 
thrones would be and what would be done, 
then go home and draw these things, as 
they were told they were going to be, 
from models and photographs, or out of 
their heads. As a matter of fact, few of 
the people stood where they should, fewer 
wore the robes they ought, and no one 
did as we were told he would, and the 
daylight managed the whole affair in its 
own way. Of the hundreds of artists there, 
the only persons who did anything of any 
importance that day were Sir Benjamin 
Stone, the photographer, and the cine- 
matograph people, but they were not art- 
ists. As for the remaining two, E. J. Sulli- 
van, also working for Taz Curonicre—I 
got him the commission—climbed on toa 
tomb and made a sketch, and I, well, I 
was as usual the only person who had any 
sense, for as I have said, my conditions 
were that I should havea seat in the organ 
loft, and that I should attend all the re- 
hearsals and the Ceremony from the same 
seat. My scheme was to give the scene as 
I saw it with the King and Queen from 
the choir as it was, as those in the choir 
saw it, as the envoys who had the best 
places saw it, and not more or less flattered 
portraits faked from photographs of Their 
Majesties and half a dozen other people 
doing things they never did. I climbed 
into the organ loft and in three hours I 
had the choir sketched in. I did not touch 
the pavement or the galleries, for I had 
no idea what the people would be like, 
or where they would stand, or what they 


a a ve 


















THE KING’S CORONATION - THE REHEARSALS 


would do. A few days later we were ad- 
mitted again. No official could tell us any 
more so I finished the architecture, the 
exact size of THE CHRONICLE page. Then I 
sent to THE CHRronicLte and demanded 
seats for the rehearsals. None came; there 
was a fehearsal; I struck. There was de- 
spair; no drawings of the Ceremony; they 
would be ruined. But I had not the im- 
agination nor the intention to do a thing 
I had not seen; they could either keep 
their promise to get me the seat for all the 
rest of the rehearsals and the Ceremony, 
or get somebody else to do it. The Editor 
pointed out to me that no one, except 
those actually engaged in the Coronation, 
could be admitted. I pointed out to him 
that I was very much engaged and he was 
very much entangled and must doit; it was 
too late to find any one else. If you treat 
an editor like this, he collapses, and a per- 
mit, a personal one, came for me from the 
Earl Marshal, admitting me to the tri- 
forium. Through ranks of saluting police 
and detectives I passed, seeing Lords left 
standing without and Envoys sent sadly 
away, and not in the triforium—naturally, 
for I know Westminster Abbey fairly well— 
but in the organ loft, I chose my place. 
But beside me was now a regiment of 
drums, and I left it and took a seat in the 
gallery. Only one mysterious other per- 
son was there, in the corner of the tran- 
sept and the nave, and there I too stayed. 
I came rather late for this rehearsal, the 
second, and it was in full swing. In the 
midst of the crossing were the two thrones, 
now in place. So I drew them as I saw 
them, for the seat I chose was on the same 
level as the organ loft and at the same 
angle nearly. And that was about all I 
did for an hour, but soon, from behind 
the Coronation chair, came slowly to the 
throne a strangely familiar figure: Mr. 
L , the King’s understudy. He was 





OE 


dressed in black, if possible more solemn 
than usual. In his hands he held the sceptre 
and the orb, or rather two pieces of lath. 
Pinned to the shoulders of his ample black 
frock coat was the Royal robe, a sheet 
torn in strips about a foot wide and twenty 
feet long, borne by a dozen or more of the 
awkwardest, clumsiest boys in Eton and 
Harrow jackets, Norfolk jackets, and gray 
pants, I have ever seen. They proved by their 
nervousness and the way they tripped and 
stumbled that they were real pages. Be- 
tween times they sprawled over the throne. 
The performance was stage-managed by 
the Earl Marshal of England and the 
Garter King-at-Arms. If I had not known 
the Earl Marshal was a Duke, I should 
have thought he was an able-bodied, bandy- 
legged sailor man who needed his hair and 
his whiskers cut. On this occasion he wore 
gray trousers, spats, a short black jacket, 
and a coronet, many sizes too big for him, 
and carried a wand when he did not carry 
his hands in his pockets, and he waddled 
terribly. Sometimes he wore an ermine 
robe that sailed away behind him, but 
after some one trod on the tail of it and 
tore it off him, he threw it away. On the 
chairs of the north transept sat and talked 
some specimen Dukes, Earls and Marquises, 
Viscounts and, in front, Knights of the 
Garter. These were selected to make their 
homage to their newly crowned King. 
There was a dwarf Duke and Lord Rose- 
bery and Earl Crewe and Viscount Curzon 
—TIT hope I have them right—and one who 
looked like a farmer, and a lot more with- 
out any character at all. In front of them 
and nearer the throne were three great 
chairs. In one was a top hat which I soon 
found out belonged to the Duke of Con- 
naught, who had got mixed up with other 
specimen Royalties and British workmen 
finishing up the decorations.‘ Now,”’ said 
the Ear] Marshal, when he had seated the 


{ 1911 | 


304 CHAPTER XXXIII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


understudy of the King and given him a 
sounding kiss on the forehead, to the Duke 
of Connaught, ‘“You must do your hom- 
age.’ “‘But what doI do?”’ said the Duke 
plaintively. ‘If Your Grace will be good 
enough to take your Coronet,’’ said Garter 
King-at-Arms, ‘‘and “But I havent 
my Coronet,’’ said the Duke flatly. ‘‘Where 
is it?’’ said the Earl Marshal severely. 
““Home,’’ said the Duke meekly. ‘‘Here, 
take mine,’’ said the Earl Marshal, and he 
pulled it off his head and the Duke took 
it by the big ball on top. ‘‘Now, what do 
I do?”’ “Here, read your homage,”’ and 
he was given a sort of card of the words. 
“And, now?”’ when he had read it. ‘‘Get 
down on your knees, and then get up and 
go up the steps, kneel again, and kiss the 
King,’’ commanded the Earl Marshal. ‘‘But 
Icant get down on my knees, or I'll never 
get up again.’ ‘‘Youve got to,”’ said the 
Earl Marshal. But he did not, and when 
he did at the Ceremony he tumbled over 
and had to be picked up. He bobbed at 
the King. “‘And next?”’ ‘Be good enough 
to kneel down, Your Grace, and then walk 
down backwards from the throne,”’ pleaded 
the Garter King. “‘I wont,”’ said the Duke, 
and he did not, and turned his back on the 
King and stalked down. ‘‘Here, here’s 
your Coronet. Thank you so much. Now, 
what do I do now?”’ to the Earl Mar- 
shal. ‘“You go home,’’ answered the Earl 
Marshal; and the Duke took his hat and 
went; and I saw him no more that day. 
Then it was the turn of the understudy 
Queen and her ladies and attendants to 
pass before the King and acknowledge 
him. But the procession did not please 
the Earl Marshal, and, after trying it 
twice, he made a speech to them. All I 
heard was the ending, ‘‘Now, then, do it 
over, and Duchesses, hustle!’’ 

GAVE up the Editor after this and took 
I matters in my own hands and had my 





permit extended, and, with difficulty, 
got in the next day, when Dukes, Am- 
bassadors and Princes were excluded alto- 
gether, save those rehearsing. This was 
with music and much more costume and 
I began to put in the figures, for the re- 
hearsal was full dress. The Clergy, the 
great Officers of State, and the specimen 
Peers and Peeresses were all there in their 
robes. No other artists, save the three 
Royal and National painters, were in the 
Abbey—Tuxen, Bacon, Gillot—and they 
were now placed in a tomb in the choir, 
with the lid raised a littlkK—it was from 
that Abbey did his painting of Edward's 
Coronation. Below the effigy on top of 
it one could see their heads and their 
easels. Soon after, the processional match 
for the entry of the King commenced, even 
where I sat deafening me. Then came the 
Archbishops, the Bishops and Clergy— 
they were all real—the Officers of State, 
the Peers, the Army, the Navy, the prop- 
erty King and his pages, and the alleged 
Queen and her ladies. The first part of the 
rehearsal was the Coronation in the Saxon 
chair. After the robing and unrobing had 
been rehearsed, the Archbishop approached 
with the Crown. He took it in his hands, 
looked at it, turned to the Dean of West- 
minster, and said: ‘* This is not the Crown!”’ 


There are two.‘‘Where’s that other Crown?” * 


said the Dean; and it looked for five min- 
utes as though it, like the regalia at Dub- 
lin, had vanished, and there would not be 
any King of England after all. Bishops and 
Vergers and Dukes ran to and fro, and 
finally found it, and the Archbishop, tak- 
ing it, said: ‘‘With this Crown I Crown 
Thee.’’ At this moment Peers and Peer- 
esses should assume their Coronets and the 
Abbey be bathed in a glowing, gleaming, 
diamond blazing glory. As a matter of 
fact, the Peers broke into a giggle and 
grin—what at, I do not know—but the 


[ror] 





ae a, a ae |. 





THE KING’S CORONATION - THE REHEARSALS 


Archbishop, dropping the Crown upon 
the momentary kingly head, strode toward 
them, remarking as he came,‘ As the Peers 
of the Realm do not appear to be acquainted 
with this portion of the Coronation serv- 
ice, I will read it to them.’’ And he did, 
though it took fifteen minutes. At the 
end, he said: ‘‘Now put on your Coronets.”’ 
And they did, and he turned his back upon 
them and left them. Then came the tri- 
umphal: “‘Vivat, Vivat, Vivat, Georgius 
Rex!’’ shouted by the choir and the West- 
minster boys—a bang from Sir Frederick 
Bridge’s, the conductor's baton, ‘‘Is that 
the way you cheer your King? Try it again. 
Cheer !’’ They did—another bang—‘‘If you 
boys cant cheer better than that, I'll go 
out in the street and hire some who can!”’ 
Somewhere about here there was a ser- 
mon, but that was skipped. Then came the 
homage and Sir Frederick Bridge, though 
he did not know it, walked over and stood 
by me, and said: “‘If I was stage-managing 
this show, it would be different! Now, 
look at that Duke—look at him,”’ said he, 
with his watch in his hand. The Duke knelt 
—he was a little old Duke—he mounted 
the steps of the throne, he knelt again, 
read his part, he rose, he kissed at his 
temporary sovereign, he spread out his 
ermine robe and stepped back right into 
the middle of it. Slowly he toppled back- 
wards, and if all the Kings-at-Arms and 
Heralds had not been waiting for just this 
to happen, there would have been one less 
Duke present at the ceremony, and in the 
Peerage too. “‘He’s taken five minutes,”’ 
said Sir Frederick, “‘not counting the fall 
—five Dukes, five Earls, five Marquises, 
and a lot more; thats two hours for this 
act; and all the while Ive got to keep my 
anthem going!’’ The next did his homage 
in a minute. ‘Well, thats better,’’ said 
Bridge, ‘‘I give em two minutes each, but 
even then, its going to take two hours for 


395 


this scene!’’ Meanwhile, gathered round 
the throne upon the steps were the great 
Officers of State, among them Kitchener 
in an ermine robe and a top hat, carrying 
a lath sword a boy would be ashamed of. 
Near him, Lord Roberts, though nearly 
hidden by Kitchener, also with ermine and 
toy sword. Kitchener, erect, a Guards- 
man, was glared at by the Earl Marshal 
who stopped in front of him. ‘‘Now, you 
may know how to direct men, but you 
dont know how to direct yourself. Turn 
round the other way. Dont turn your back 
on your Gracious Sovereign.’’ And Imade a 
lithograph of all this, the property King, 
the Dukes and the Generals all mixed up 
with British workmen on the job and char- 
women cleaning up, and I showed it to 
the most all high and he begged me not 
to print it. It and he too went in the War. 
The only other unrehearsed part was when 
an Earl stepped on a Duke’s robe and tore 
it off his back, and I thought from their 
looks there would be a tournament at 
least. One Marquis sat down on the floor 
and took a nap with his head against a 
pillar. That day I put in nearly all the fig- 
utes, for the Gentlemen-at-Arms, the Yeo- 
men, and all the rest of the officials and 
menials were in costume and the groups 
that were composed by Garter King and 
the real stage manager, Sir Schomberg Mac- 
Donell, told, as it was meant they should 
tell, against the deep blue carpets. I felt 
now that all was right, though to keepme 
quiet I was given another drawing after 
refusing three others by THz CHRONICLE, 
but even I could not be in Parliament 
Street, on the top of St. Martin’s Church, 
and in Westminster Abbey at the same 
time or during the day. The entire British 
system of art education had only produced 
two or three illustrators, so they had to 
come to me. The gentleman who did the 
procession from St. Martin’s turned his 


Lr9r1] 


306 CHAPTER XXXIII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


drawing in to Tue Curonicie some days 
before it started. 

INALLY, the great day came, a gray 
F day. We were up at five. On such oc- 
casions London loses its head, the police 
become maudlin, and the authorities bar- 
ricade the streets to control crowds that 
never gather. What they would do in New 
York, I do not dare to think. We were 
told by maps and plans just where we 
could and could not go. What I did was 
to walk quietly to the Abbey, carrying a 
foot-square card in my hand. So did all 
those who had not carriages or had not 
lost their heads. The card went in the War. 
My entrance was through the cloisters and 
up the stairs to the triforium, just over 
where I had been all the time. On this 
day alone I did not take my big drawing, 
for it was finished, all but the crowd of 
spectators in the galleries of the choir. I had 
during the four rehearsals, seen and drawn 
—the only person who did—the whole 
function. Details of that crowd were what 
I wanted, and I got them in a sketchbook 
—that went also in the War. I saw that 
all the ladies wore feathers, three small 
ones, in their hair; that the Gentlemen of 
the Guard did not stand in the choir as I 
was told they would and as they did at 
the rehearsals, while Archbishops and 
Bishops sat on a wooden bench; and the 
real King and Queen were there. Before I 
went up, as the seats were numbered and 
reserved, I stopped to speak to friends, 
some in Court dress, others in plumes, or 
blue and gold, gorgeous and conscious. 
There was one little group of which | 
formed a part, disguised as gentlemen in 
top hats and frock coats. We were so few 
as to be conspicuous. Through the clois- 
ters, where we were, swept an endless 
procession of the most extraordinary cos- 
tumes: Knights of the Garter in great 
Spanish hats above which waved towering 


plumes, the blue velvet mantles gathered 
about them, most with chains and crosses 
of other orders, their under-costume white 
and round their knees the golden garter, 
their trains borne by pages; towering Ger- 
man Life Guards, all in white, with gold 
and silver helmets, the most striking fig- 
ures there; Turks, Bishops, Envoys, Dons, 
Judges, Sailors; every one in full dress, and 
through the wonderfully appropriate sur- 
roundings of the Dean’s Yard and clois- 
ters, they rapidly passed to their seats. 
But the procession seemed endless, and, 
not waiting for the end, I made my way 
to my place. Here I found myself among 
enemies and friends, alongside Marie 
Corelli in feathers and court dress. In the 
trifortum there were but a handful of 
people and we could walk about. And 
now I found how sensible I had been and 
how lucky I was, for I had not chosen 
this place, but of all the eight or ten 
thousand people in the Abbey, not four 
hundred, probably less, saw the Ceremony, 
only those on the western angles of the 
galleries, as I was, the Envoys and Min- 
isters of State and the Choir, could see it 
in its completeness and splendor. Those 
in the nave saw nothing but the proces- 
sions entering and leaving; the Lords and 
Commons only saw the King and Queen 
when crowned ; Judges, Sailors and Sol- 
diers in the nave saw nothing at all. Ido 
not know who were the people in the 
two bays near us, but they and we alone 
saw the entire Coronation. All the re- 
hearsed ceremonial was carried out. The 
greater part and the most solemn part 
took place in the choir. Only once or twice 
did the King face his people: when pre- 
sented to them, turning to the four corners 
of the earth, and when he walked to the 
throne. At all other times he turned his 
back upon them. Such, however, is the 
custom followed in almost every detail. 


[1911] 





> 





IN 


LITHOGRAPH DRAWN 
THE ABBEY * REPRODUCED AND PRINTED THE NEXT DAY IN THE LONDON DAILY CHRONICLE 


* WESTMINSTER ABBEY JUNE 22 I9QII 


CORONATION OF GEORGE V 





THE KING’S CORONATION - THE CEREMONY 


T HERE Were gorgeous processions, first 
to bring the Crown and the Regalia ; 
the arrival of the various Royalties, in- 
cluding the Prince of Wales and the En- 
voys; finally the coming of the King and 
Queen, who passed into Edward the Con- 
fessor’s Chapel to be robed. The presenta- 
tion of the King followed and the Herald's 
demand of the people to accept him. Then 
they undressed him toa red undergarment 
—I do not know its official name—and, 
after they had cut a hole in it, anointed 
him with oil, and then dressed him again. 
But it was all very quiet. Everything was 
as it should be, only the diamonds did 
not flash when the Peers put on their Cor- 
onets. It was all purple and ermine and 
ivory on the deep blue, and, in the ranks 
of Peers and Peeresses, court dresses and 
official costumes, some of amazing color, 
crossed with ribbons, covered with stars, 
or rows of pearls above the white gowns, 
and threesmallfeathersin eachlady’s hair. 
The strongest notes of color were among 
the Envoys and they were dominated by 
the Ethiopian, or Abyssinian, black as 
night, in a green top hat, lined with red 
and covered with a crown strewn with 
diamonds, which he wore all the time, 
the rest of him arrayed, as far as I could 
see, in cloth of gold. From his screaming 
splendor one gradually descended to an 
acquaintance disguised as a Colonel of 
Italian Infantry, in blue, representing San 
Marino, and Mr. Whitelaw Reid in sol- 
emn United States black and white which, 
at any rate, was a telling note in the dis- 
cordant riot of color. The Indian Princes, 
if they could have been seen, would have 
been splendid; they seemed all gold and 
glitter. But they were hidden away down 
the nave and hundreds of Major Generals 
and hundreds of Admirals made two big 
blocks of red and blue, lost in its shadows. 
All this we had time to see from the tri- 


Oe, 


forium, for we could walk about. And 
after, came anthems and rejoicings and 
finally the prayers with their heavenly re- 
sponses, too beautiful for words; then the 
homage. More processions under canopies 
and benedictions ; it went on for hours. 
We luckily had brought some lunch and 
I believe there was lunch—anyway there 
certainly was at Victoria’s Coronation, 
for she talks of it coming from a tomb— 
and for a while nobody paid much atten- 
tion to what was going on. Thenthere was 
disrobing and a change of Crowns and the 
King and Queen departed, and as the King 
stepped down from his throne he might 
have fallen over his footstool if his prompter 
had not grabbed it out of the way. Then 
the Princes and Princesses left, and as they 
went, the Peers carefully grabbed the prayer 
books and programs they had used, and, I 
believe, carried off their chairs too. At 
last, we all got out. Still, one could not 
help thinking that had there been a panic, 
British Aristocracy would have ceased to 
exist and Lloyd George too, for he and 
John Burns were there. But the latter had 
no means of distinguishing himself. In 
the Dean’s Yard the sight was wonderful: 
Royal carriages, Ambassadorial equipages, 
the Peers’ great gold, silver, white and blue 
coaches, the horses with colored plumes 
on their heads, their manes plaited, the 
fat drivers, the crowds of footmen hang- 
ing on behind, seen probably for the last 
time. The mess of it was unbelievable. 
One Lord could not find his coach, and 
when he did find it he had lost her Lady- 
ship, and when he found her the coach 
had been moved on. Then it began to rain 
and the want of dignity combined with 
the canniness of the British Peer shone 
forth. Coronets disappeared and caps re- 
placed them. A Duchess and a Viscountess, 
with robes and skirts to their knees, 
disappeared up Victoria Street under a 


{rgiz | 


310 CHAPTER XXXII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


carriage umbrella, held over them by a 
footman, heading the Company of Beef 
Eaters. Peers from Chelsea went back on 
a penny steamboat they had chartered. 
Cinderella, after the ball, was nothing to 
it, and there was no end of it, either. 
Hardly a person, save Sullivan and my- 
self—we stuck together—was not in cos- 
tume. When we had had enough of it and 
left, the Abbey was still disgorging Dukes, 
Ambassadors, Princesses and Envoys; the 
streets were solid with soldiers, only a 
little space clear in the center. You bumped 
into a gorgeous thing: ‘‘Look out, old 
man, youll tear me.”’ It was a friend. The 
streets were carpeted with newspapers and 


sandwich bags—this day like New York 
every day—over which the carriages rustled. 
It was such a motley crowd, as you see 
after a Quatz Arts ball—only these cos- 
tumes were real—we struggled up Parlia- 
ment Street through it, and so home. A 
few hours later the drawing was finished, 
and mine and Sullivan’s appeared next day 
in THe Darty Curonicre. To-day there is 
no one capable of doing drawings like 
them save us. And Sullivan makes adver- 
tisements, and I, well, I go on, but IIlus- 
tration like ours has gone to the dogs— 
or photography. The world “‘do move’’ 
backwards in all that made it decent to 
live in, but nobody knows, nobody cares. 


THE DATLY CHRONICLE. TUESDAY. JUNE 20, 1911 2 





Whitehall Prepared for the Coronation Procession. 





Aa imprenion by Me Joneph Pennell of the sccme yesterday im Whucbal, looking towards Tralulgar Square. In the foreground are the mastive columns, sumoumed by tymbolle figures, waich form « 
ries teruce of te Cansitan Cecorwuens, This being ihe broadeat thocourblare on ibe Royal rouse, lined with Coverwacat cllices, and offering lar visit leads nacit sdminbly © # decorative qeheme 
of anity wod Lagiostion, 


[ror | 





CHAPTER XXXIV: GETTING ARRESTED -IN AVIGNON 
TARASCON - ON THE MARNE - ESCAPING ARREST IN NEW 


YORK AND IN LONDON :- 


wHo am the most inoffensive and in- 
defensive of mortals, am always being 
arrested—that is, since I have come 
to years of discretion and the world 
has gone mad about ee I have never 
fireda gun, andIrun game 
from a fight, and I 
faint at the sight of 
blood. Yet, over and 
Over, governments 
have regarded meas a 
dangerous character, 
spied upon me, and, 
after due precautions 
and persecutions, ar- 
rested me and then 
apologized or made 
laws for my benefit 
or my hindrance. I 
have from these ar- 
rests had so much ex- 
perience that I would 
make an admirable 
spy. One thing inmy 
favor is my innocent 
face and my unmili- 
tary figure. But ifI © 
really wanted tospy, — 
I could do it and © 
would be a valuable © 
asset to governments. 





AN ADVENTURE AT BETHLEHEM 


myself to do it. I have done it. Memory 
would be of the greatest use to spies. I 
have heard of their committing documents 
to memory, but never of a spy artist, if 
there ever was one—save political spies, 
and they always get 
caught. I was in Essen 
after Germany de- 
clared war on France 
in 1914. I was there 
officially, and though 
I had a lot of govern- 
ment papers with me 
=-but not on me—t 
was perfectly certain 
I would not be al- 
lowed to see the gun 
fitting shops. I was 
warned away by sen- 
tries from the testing 
grounds and entrances 
to works by helmeted 
axe-bearing guards. 
But I know Essen, or 
did before the War, 
and it was only nec- 
essary to follow—or 
rather go with—the 
clerks after lunch in- 
to the shops and get 
busy looking about 


The thing would be 
perfectly simple. If I 
wished to obtain de- 


CARICATURE OF JOSEPH PENNELL BY WYNCIE 
KING *‘ OWNED BY F. S. BIGELOW ° THE MOST 
INOFFENSIVE OF MORTALS IN THE WORLD 


with my eyes wide 
open and remember 
what I saw, and then 


tailed and accurate 

information concerning a fort ora harbor, 
Iwould merely stroll slowly and aimlessly 
into the place and sit down for half an 
hour and look at it, while I pretended to 
sleep, and I could, an hour later, in my 
own room, draw an accurate picture of it. 
I know I could do so, for I have trained 


walk out, though I 
felt it ticklish. Yet even in Essen, at the 
end of July, 1914, there were illustrated 
post cards for sale of the gun-fitting shop 
and turret shop I wanted to see. I exhibited 
the drawings of them in London in 1916. 
jeje what a mystery was made of 

Ford’s Eagles. I knew nothing about 


{ 1890-1918 | 


a1 


them when the War or Navy—I think it 
was the War—Department sent me to 
Detroit in 1918 to draw Ford’s place; but 
as I was taken around by a military man I 
was told I must not draw the first Eagle 
boat being built and almost finished; in- 
side the motor works, no one but those 
at work in the bay where it was being 
built—and they were mostly working on 
it—was supposed to have seen it. The 
officer told me all this as we walked by. 
But luckily, while I looked, some one 
called my military guide away and I went 
on looking hard, and then, as soon as he 
came back, on some excuse I escaped and 
went straight to the hotel, as soon as 
I could get rid of the military man, and 
locked myself in my room, and before 
night the drawing was finished, and I had 
nothing but my memory to work from. 
But I could see the ship in the shop on the 
paper as I drew it. I can see it still, and 
the naval authorities who have seen the 
drawing will not believe a word of this, 
though I should think a real memory for 
a real Army or Navy officer might be of as 
much value as dancing or even tennis, 
both of which I understand they are 
taught. Do they exercise their memories? 
Is there a sailor or soldier with a trained 
memory? I doubt it. I had to draw a 
sidewise launch that summer, or later, at 
Detroit in a minute or less as the ship 
went off the ways, from memory, but I 
was arrested by a smart shipbuilder in 
the same town for openly drawing his 
yard, and he locked me in a room which 
looked out on my subject—oh fools and 
blind. In Panama, at Gatun Lock, I saw 
the workmen for a few seconds mount 
as I have drawn them, clinging to a chain 
—a most decorative design. The subject 
never could occur again, but I did it, and 
so well that the officials stopped the men 
coming up that way though they had never 


CHAPTER XXXIV - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


noticed it till drew them. You cannot im- 
agine things like that; you must do them 
when you see them. Take rapidly running 
water. Anybody can draw it if they learn. 
to look at it. Thaulow drew it from pho- 
tographs, snapshots, and that killed him 
artistically. But the Greeks could do horses 
in motion. As for crowds, they can best 
be drawn by memory and observation. 
They are really very simple, for people 
and animals are only machines and do the 
same things over and over again, and one 
has only to look for and remember their re- 
peated motions. As for nocturnes, Whistler 
showed the way. The Japanese had taught 
him how; but I believe great observers 
among them, like Hokusaiand Hiroshige, 
are no more common than with us, only 
they are better trained. The Japanese art- 
ists I have seen at work have no observa- 
tion; they repeat the same subject again 
and again in the same way; it is a mere 
trick. Still, they work from memory. I had 
a remarkable Japanese student, however, 
in my class at the League who did see 
things and do them. The big Greeks and 
the great Japs learned to look at things, 
remember them, put them down. We crib 
from lying snapshots. Photography has 
nearly killed observationand memory, the 
assets of Diirer and Turner and of Le Coq de 
Boisbaudran who taught it all to Fantin 
and Legros. As to drawing a fort, I know 
an hour’s looking at it would give me 
all the details, because I would memorize 
them and never use a pencil or write a 
note. The spy is stupid, and so are the 
people who employ him, especially if they 
are warlike. I am usually stopped when 
carrying a brief case, a camp stool, a 
fifteen-inch sketch block and a two-foot 
T square. Why an artist going to work 
openly is a spy, only the ignorant and the 
official can tell. But the whole world is 
ignorant of art, which accounts for cub- 


[ 1890-1918 | 





GETTING ARRESTED - THE SECOND TIME IN FRANCE 


ism and expressionism and collectors and 
other commercial do good to the poor 
artist authorities who have bought their 
way into art. 

HE first time I was arrested, as I have 

told, was in France with Hamerton; 
and so was the second. But the third— 
after that they are so numerous I cannot 
keep track of them in order—was the most 
amusing ofall. It was in Avignon. I was 
drawing the broken bridge across the 
Rhone. I had sat all the morning on the 
Isle de la Barthelasse and drawn the old 
bridge jutting out from the opposite shore 
towards the island, behind the half de- 
molished walls of the city, and beyond 
them the Rocher des Doms, the tower of 
the Cathedral and the Palais des Papes. I 
noticed a seedy individual loafing about 
and when I packed up my numerous traps 
—sketch book, camp stool and water- 
color box—he gruffly invited me to come 
with him. I asked where and why, and 
he said to the Commissaire de Police and 
that he would show me why. I, of course, 
refused till he pulled a package from 
within his blouse, wrapped in a dirty 
handkerchief, and from that a dirty card 
—Agent de Police. I then produced a 
brand-new permit from the Ministére des 
Beaux Arts, which he quietly consulted 
upside down before he announced that it 
was no good. It is useless to argue with 
such people, so I went to the Hétel de 
Ville with him, refusing to walk by his 
side, however, and going at such a pace 
that he almost had to run to keep up with 
me. At the Hétel de Ville I was shown 
into, not acell, but a sort of official tomb, 
and waited and waited. By and by an 
official came and I was asked to follow 
him to the Commissaire, from whose 
room I saw the Agent departing by an- 
other door, for one is never confronted in 
France by one’s accusers. ‘‘Had I been 


ABS: 


drawing in Avignon?”’ ‘Yes, fora week.”’ 
“Had I a permit for Avignon?’’ ‘‘No.”’ 
“Then, it was serious.’’ “‘But I had for 
the whole of France.’’ And I showed it to 
him. He had never seen anything of the 
sort—how did he know I had not stolen 
it? Well, here was a letter from M. Jusse- 
rand of the Foreign Office, vouching for 
me. Of course, he had never heard of M. 
Jusserand. They had already found out 
where I lived—a very easy matter, as on 
atrival at a hotel one has to sign one’s 
name in the police book, as well as state 
one’s nationality, family, birthplace and 
profession. If I were a spy I should sign 
that of my favorite enemy. They had also 
brought my things from the hotel and 
they were most incriminating—full of 
drawings of machines and places. I must 
be examined and meantime be confined 
until they heard from Paris, or I could 
prove my innocence; for one is guilty 
in France till one can—and here too, 
nowadays. “‘Well,’’ said I, ‘‘you say I 
have stolen the papers and you never 
heard of M. Jusserand. Unless you tele- 
‘graph instantly to him and the Minister, 
I will telegraph to the American Ambas- 
sador.’’ And I produced my battered pass- 
port. ‘‘If they deny me, do what you like. 
Only, till they do deny me, I refuse to 
leave this office, unless you apologize and 
give mea paper saying Iam innocent.’’ In 
ten minutes I had the paper. Yet within a 
few miles of this town, that same summer, 
Carnot was killed after he had passed 
through it and the wise Commissaire 
never spotted the assassin, who doubtless 
was also in Avignon for weeks before. 
Only the other day M. Jusserand reminded 
me of the incident, which is why I have 
recalled it. The one use of the paper was 
—as I meant it should be—when I was 
arrested again, as I was a few days later, 
for drawing, this time the Castle of Beau- 


{ 1890-1918 } 


314 


caire from Tarascon, and I showed it to 
the Mayor of that immortal city. His 
delight at the discomfiture of the hated 
Avignonais resulted in my instant release 
and an adjournment to a café on the shady 
Cours, where the stupidity of ces gens la 
haut was roared over. It was not so long 
after TarTarIN had come out and the peo- 
ple of Tarascon were pretty savage at for- 
eign Frenchmen, they being of Provence. 
The articles I was illustrating were writ- 
ten by Miss Preston. She did not go to 
Provence with me. She had been long be- 
fore it became correct and had translated 
Mrrero, which I wanted to illustrate, but 
never did. 
ap HE last time I got ina scrape in France 
was when I was cycling down the 
tow-path of the Marne. The lock-keepers’ 
houses, covered with flowers, got pret- 
tier and prettier and at one I believed 
must be the prettiest, I commenced to 
make a drawing. That part of France, it 
is true, is almost in sight of Germany. 
I had not been at work long when the 
lock-keeper came round behind me and 
seeing what I was doing, seized hold 
of the drawing, yelling to some men 
unloading a barge, near by, ‘‘L’espion! 
l’espion! Au secours!’’ They dropped their 
work and seized me and my bicycle. It 
was useless to explain; they had caught 
me in the act of making maps. ‘‘Voici 
qu il tire des plans!’’ I mildly protested, 
but a garde champétre coming up at the 
moment, I was marched to the Mairie, 
and the Maire rolled out of bed. Ves! 
there were the plans. They were charm- 
ing delicate pen drawings, afterwards 
printed in Taz Cenrury—‘‘A Trip Down 
the Marne.’’ And I must be locked up in 
the Mairie until the Gendarmes could 
be sent for and they would take me to 
Chalons-sur-Marne, back to the scene of 
the old Saéne scrape with Hamerton, 


CHAPTER. XXXIV - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


and I would there be tried, imprisoned 
and shot. And how long would this take? 
Chalons being some ten or twelve miles 
off, I had ridden from there that morning. 
Oh, two or three days, because one must 
write, and there were always formalities 
with those gentlemen. I suggested, as an 
alternative—it was about 5.30 a.m—that 
if there was a train we might all take it to 
Chalons, at my expense, and so expedite 
justice and have a little excursion. There 
was a train. My bicycle was left in the 
Mairie; the Maire and the garde cham- 
pétre and I started, accompanied by a 
crowd of eminent citizens and citizen- 
esses. I bought three single third-class 
tickets to Chalons. I treated them to cof- 
fee at the station, for they said the offi- 
cials would not be up. I was taken to the 
Commissaire de Police. He said it was 
the concern of the Gendarmes, and they 
said it was the affair of the Préfet. To him 
we went. He was just up. They went in 
first, carrying the drawing, and then I 
was called in as they went out. He asked 
pleasantly, could I prove that this excel- 
lent work was mine? I did in about five 
minutes; and then he rang a bell and said 
to an attendant, ‘‘Faites entrer ces gens 
la!’ And they heard something before 
they got out and I went up considerably 
in my own estimation. It so happened I 
had wonanaward at the International Ex- 
hibition in Paris that year—it was in 1900 
—two gold medals. ‘‘But why discuss 
things with such people?’ said the Préfet. 
T explained it was not discussion but what 
might be called force majeur. Then I went 
back to the station and there were the 
Maire and the garde. I returned first-class 
to the town at my expense, and the Maire 
and garde third-class at theirs. Crowds 
filled the station when we arrived. The 
Maire, good patriot, would be reélected 
and doubtless I was in prison already. 


[1890-1918 | 














GUN DIPPING SHOP BETHLEHEM - WITH THE BIG DUMP AND GREAT CRANES IN THE DISTANCE 


FOR DRAWING WHICH I WAS ARRESTED SOME YEARS BEFORE I MADE THE LITHOGRAPH I917 


316 CHAPTER XXXIV - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


The scene in the station when we each 
got out was indescribable; but all the 
same, I thought it best to get the bicycle 
and leave; and I did not even wait to hear 
the Maire’s explanation of the conduct of 
the sale cochon d’un Préfet, but left for 
the next country as fast as possible, and I 
saw them no more. I hope the Mayor did 
get retlected. I found a monkey-wrench 
gone when I opened the tool bag. That 
was before the American advertising men 
were givena reception at the Elysée in Paris 
with their ladies, and afterwards forty- 
seven official gold spoons were missing, 
though I believe they were found later. 

HERE have been lots more arrests, 

some like the Hamerton and Russian 
and War experiences described in other 
chapters. One was in Italy, on arriving 
in Mestre, on a motor tricycle. The piazza 
was crowded after Mass and I was just 
moving. I knocked down a fisherman 
whom I dodged right and dodged left, 
and then hit fair and knocked ten feet. 
Hewas picked up bleeding, and I promptly 
fainted. Luckily, the Syndic was there 
and he saw I did all I could to dodge the 
man, and as I paid the doctor's bill for 
the fisherman’s broken head, stood a 
lunch for the Syndic, a journalist of the 
GazeETTINA DI Venezia, and the doctor, I 
was allowed to go to Venice, leaving the 
machine as security; besides, tricycles are 
of little use in Venice. I notified the au- 
thorities when I was coming back, and 
the first person I met on the pier at Mestre 
was the fisherman, who said he had hada 
delightful holiday and would be willing 
to be knocked down on the same terms 
again. There have been endless other ar- 
rests. One of the last I remember was 
in New York, or rather on Governor's 
Island. General Grant, the Viennese Min- 
ister of the Russian episode, had given 
me a permit to draw there so I had had 


no trouble. I was scarce asked to show 
it. I was only reasoned with by a ser- 
geant—I am sure from the Middle West 
—who, when he read it and saw I was 
doing The Statue, said that that was not 
New York which the permit said I was 
to draw. As he was an American and I 
was too, and this was my country, I 
am afraid I made fun of him in the pres- 
ence of his men, who, if he did not, 
seemed to appreciate my remarks. But a 
few days later, an American citizen with 
a brogue, who seemed to be employed to 
pull down flags at sunset, a trick he would 
do, I know, if the British ever got near 
New York, spotted me and told me to 
stop. I think I told him to mind his own 
business and let me alone. ‘‘Oh, Oi’le let 
yer alone, you an’ yer permits. I fotch 
der liveteenent,’’ and he vanished. Time 
passed and nothing happened; the effect 
also passed, and I took the General Han- 
cock back to New York. As she pulled 
out of the dock, I saw the Irish-American 
patriot and a corporal making a flank 
movement behind some lumber piles to 
surprise me. Which was the most sur- 
prised when they did not find me, or what 
they did, I do not know; only I hope they 
sent the independent Irishman back to his 
native bog. It is a pity there are not 
enough Americans to make an American 
army, if we have to have one to ape other 
countries. 
dk HESE drawings of New York I did for 
myself at that time, with no authors 
to bother me, and they were issued without 
text in THe Century, and in this I set the 
fashion to art editors. When I was doing 
Tar New New York with John Van Dyke, 
a delightful person—I should be afraid to 
have anything to do with the other one 
—T had a police pass for the city, though 
I was told never to show it till I had to. 
One day I was working on the end of the 


[1890-1918 } 





GETTING ARRESTED - LONDON AND BETHLEHEM 


elevated platform at Brooklyn Bridge—it 
was then open—and as I worked I noticed 
a policeman watching me while he fanned 
himself with his club, walking up and 
down, up and down. When people got in 
front of me, I stood at the top of the 
stairs on one side and they could not see 
over my shoulder, and when they got be- 
hind me, I backed over to the stairs on 
the other side, and they fell down them; 
but I went on moving from side to side, 
keeping the crowd off, and soon the 
policeman came over and said, ‘‘Well, 
Govner, when I seen yer fust I thought 
I'd have to ask yer to re-tire; but when I 
seen the way yer got on to them rubber- 
necks, youse is all right!’ And after that 
he fanned the populace. Later I found 
him in the Broadway squad, and when he 
saw me he used to say, “Well, General, 
w’at’ll we do to-day?”’ I got on all right 
with “‘the finest’’, and always do—only 
fools and officials make me tired. 

wn London once, when I was making 

the illustrations for CHarinc Cross To 
Sr. Paux’s, I was standing on a corner at 
Ludgate Hill and the people crowded in 
front and blocked the pavement. I could 
see over them, but a Bobby told me I was 
obstructing the traffic. I said I was not; | 
did not bring the people, did not want 
them; and he moved them on. Back they 
came again. He told me to go. I refused 
and he went away and returned with a 
sergeant. And then the sergeant went 
away and brought back two privates and 
they kept the crowd moving; but that 
sergeant had a sense of things. After that, 
I was given a government permit with 
the name of every public building in 
London on it. It was issued to builders 
usually, but to me specially, and all I had 
to do, when a policeman stopped me, 
was to be drawing a public edifice, even if 
miles away, and tell him he would see 


S07, 


I had permission to sketch it, and if he 
would look at the paper he would find it; 
as the paper was several pages long, I was 
often near done before he did. Another 
time I was drawing the House of Parlia- 
ment or Westminster by night, and a 
Bobby tried to stop me. I refused to stop 
or be arrested, so he went away, but soon 
reappeared and said it was all a mistake 
—the regulation was only intended for 
Americans and spies. I told him I was the 
first and was frequently taken for the sec- 
ond. But the funniest arrest was at Beth- 
lehem, not of Judea, but of my native 
State, though I imagine there are more 
Jews in Philadelphia than in Jerusalem; 
there are more superior idiots, anyway. I 
believe it was in 1912 that I thought I 
would like to do the Bethlehem Steel 
Works; so after writing and asking per- 
mission to draw them and getting no 
answer, not an uncommon experience in 
dealing with American business men, some 
of whom have proved since the War that 
they are as ignorant of business as they 
are of manners, I started, and in the after- 
noon I reached the works, which curi- 
ously, as I have said, I had drawn years 
before. I eventually got on the bridge 
which runs through the middle of the 
mills and drew them in a glory of smoke 
and sunset. The Government has the 
drawing. I saw on the other side of the 
bridge great cranes and great dumps of 
ore, and came back the next morning and 
started at them. It was too dark to draw 
that night. ‘‘Git out of that,”’ said a cop, 
a long way off. I never pay any attention 
to such remarks from such people, and 
finally he came up and said if I did not 
leave at once, he would run me out. I told 
him that physically he was able to do so 
but if he tried he would lose his job.When 
he sufficiently calmed down under a little 
good—if rather new—advice I gave him 


{ 1890-1918 | 


318 CHAPTER XXXIV - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


on the subject of being a slave to a cor- 
poration, I asked him where I should go 
for permission to draw this precious 
dump, and having under further good 
advice become quite friendly, he told me 
to ask for some one I never heard of, at the 
main office. I went, sent in my pompier 
card, which would impress any intelligent 
person, but the mighty man merely sent 
word back, or his clerk did, that no one 
was allowed to draw in the works. I ex- 
pected it, and so crossed the street to a 
Hungarian cigar store—Schwab has told 
me since that sixty per cent. of his men are 
foreigners. It was not Schwab who was 
such a cad, but an intellectual, university 
educated person—and I bought a series of 
photographs of the very cranes I wanted 
to draw, made from the very bridge; and 


CAMBRIA STEEL WORKS JOHNSTOWN -: CHALK DRAWING - I WAS ARRESTED FOR MAKING THIS 
DRAWING ON A PUBLIC ROAD BY AN AMERICAN OFFICIAL PROBABLY BORN IN RUSSIA - I91I7 


{ 1890-1918 } 


then I left. I reported these facts to the 
Philadelphia papers, and even they saw 
the joke. The first time I came out of the 
Bethlehem Steel Works by the big gate, 
when I went there to draw them during 
the War, the head guard came upand said, 
“I want to thank you, Sir, for getting me 
this job.”’ ‘‘Howe”’ said I. “‘Why, you 
got it for me when I turned you off the 
bridge that day—because I did my duty. 
I ain’t no ‘slave’ no longer, as you called 
me; I’m the chief cop.’’ Nice Sunday- 
school story, but true. 
ap H1s was the sort of thing, amusing now 
but irritating at the time, that Iranup 
against in my War Work, and it is direc- 
tors like this Bethlehem person who want 
America thrown open to imported labor. 
It pays them—so its good for the country. 








4 
‘ 
7 






CHAPTER XXXV: WORK IN THE YEARS 1912 AND 1913 


HE year 1912, the busiest of my 

life, I passed between Rome, Pan- 

ama, San Francisco and New York. 

I went to Panama to draw the 
Canal, for I felt that the greatest work of 
modern time should give me my greatest 
chance. As all these illustrations and litho- 
graphs have been exhibited, published, 
sold, I only refer to them and to the first 
of my picture books in which they ap- 
peared, JosepH PENNELL’s PicruRES OF THE 
PaNnaMaA Canat, and though these books 
have not the popularity of Mutt and Jeff, 
they will not altogether die. My adven- 
tures are described in the Panama book. 
There were many others coming up the 
Pacific with a boat load of trippers and a 
very fresh water captain, but it was not 
till I got to San Francisco that I had a big 
adventure, designing and drawing the Ex- 
hibition, a design that was never used, 
save as propaganda in Europe—though 
the Exhibition was a credit to the archi- 
tects who built it, my design for the Cen- 
tral Court was far finer than theirs. Com- 
ing East I stopped at the Grand Canyon, 
saw the Big Trees and the Yosemite. In 
New York I tried to have my lithographs 
transferred to stone but was told by the 
American overlords of that craft that to 
do so I must join the Union. I said I was 
willing, I was told it would cost me thirty 
dollars. I answered I would try to beg, 
borrow or steal it, and I was informed I 
was not eligible—this 1s the way with 
American craftsmen of whose craft I have 
forgotten more than they, or their Union 
will ever learn—though at last, I hear, 
the American engraver has come to the 
conclusion he must “‘stress art’’—poor 
att. The drawings were most successfully 
transferred and printed by Mr. Gregor at 
the Ketterlinus Lithographic Shop in Phil- 
adelphia, the first time decent lithographs 
had been done in this country. The idea of 


going to Panama and making lithographs 
of the Canal was mine—I asked certain 
editors if they would take my drawings if 
I made them—no one asked me to go and 
do them. They were printed first by THE 
Century and Tue ILtusrrateD LonDoN 
News and then published all over the 
world. The Canal proved to me that to un- 
derstand the wonder of work in the present 
I should know the wonderful work of the 
past—and so, in 1913, I went to Greece. 
The biggest adventure there was traveling 
with, or being carted about by a courier, 
because I did not know a word of the lan- 
guage. There was no need for him, for the 
country was overrun by one hundred per 
cent. shoe blacking, peanut selling Amer1- 
cans, who, the minute their late country 
offered them a drachma and a drink and 
their clothes and feed, dropped ours, they 
said to fight for their remote fatherland 
but I could discover mighty little fight- 
ing. I was kept from seeing what there 
was at Salonica—though not from seeing 
that Athens was jammed full of these 
bums drawing their pay. They must have 
encountered the Turks somewhere, for I 
saw more Turkish prisoners than Greek 
soldiers, and I vastly preferred them to 
their captors. My Greek drawings, when 
I got back to London, were printed by the 
Ways—or rather by their printer and me 
—the Ways knew little about printing, 
but a lot about posing—and were pub- 
lished in my IN THE LAND oF TEMPLEs. 
They are as good as any I ever made, but 
no one has cared for them. I stupidly sup- 
posed every archzologist and all art stu- 
dents and art colleges would want them, 
but I found they really wanted photo- 
graphs, and the archzologists—the Am- 
ericans from the Middle West Reserve— 
had ruined Corinth and now are, with the 
aid of the artless Greeks, to destroy what 
is left of beauty and history in Athens. 


{ 1912-1913 | 





MADE ON MY RETURN EAST I9I2 


LITHOGRAPH 


ae 


Pea ay 


eee 
isan 





STORM IN THE GRAND CANYON ARIZONA 





NIGHT IN THE YOSEMIT 


THE FALLS DRAWN FROM THE HOTEL 


LITHOGRAPH I912 


E VALLEY 


Bee 


ey 





TEMPLE OF JUPITEREVENING: LITHOGRAPH I91I3 FROMTHE LAND OFTEMPLES: W. HEINEMANN 








LITHOGRAPH I 913 


GOING HOME TO THE BAA LAAM - THE MONASTERIES AT METEORA 





A KOniglidy privilegirte Ber und gelehrten Gaden, = 
Wepin Ch Yeestrort Nr diRedskion Gaunt Gof Qaftofelle Bceite Ste, 8/9, Bertin OC. BS, BUD for Pocnaeesruate oe eee nana 


lin, 


ot Ojterreidhijde Thronjolger 
und jeine Gattin ermordet. 


BA Ginter growenvollen Btuttat find, ber Grghergog - Thronfolger Franz Ferdinand von a 
~Oefterretdh-Ungarn und feine Gattin, die Hergogin von Hohenberg, gum Opfer gefallen. ° 
re ‘2 Durd Sdhitffe ferbifdjer Fanatiter wurden fte ermordet, naddent fie cinem Bomben= 
ee -<attentat, durd) das cinige Offiziere. aus ihrem Gefolge und einige Perfonen aus dem 
SPublifum verwundet wurden, entgangen waren. Ueber das furchtbare Ereignis wird uns 
= telegraphiert: 
e\ Sarajewo, 28, Sunt (Telegramm unferes Rorrefpon- : 
4 ,Denten.) MWS der Ersherzog-Thronfolger Franz Kerdinand und 
gicine Gattin, die Herzogin yon Hohenberg, fic) heute Vormittag 
+ Porn Gmpfange in das hiefige Rathaus beqaben, wnrde gegen Das 
sersherzoqlide Wutomobil eine Bombe geldhleudert, die jedody - 
Serplodierte, al8 das WAutomobil des Shronfolgers die Stelle bereits 
Spajfiert hatte. Sn dem darauffolgenden Wagen wurde der Major 
eSraf Boos-Waldek von der Militirfanslet des Thronfolgers und. 
fr Oberftleutnant Merigzi, der Perfonaladjutant deg Landeshaupt: | 
femanns von Bosnien, erheblidh verwundet Ge dh 8. 
ePerfonen aus dem Publitum wurden [jhwers, 


age 
i 
\ 








te 







bs’ 


verletst Die Bombe war von einem Typographen namens: 
ECabrinowitid gefdleudert worden, Der Tater wurde fofort 2 
Swerhaftet. Mad) dem feitliden Gmpfang im Rathauje febte dag’ 
EShronfolgerpaar die Rundfahrt durch) die Strafien der Stadt 





fort. Umweit des Regierungsqebaudes fdop cin Gymnafiaft ‘der 
gy adten SKlajfe (Primaner) namens Pringip aus Grabow - ag. 


“einem Browning mehrere Sdhitffe gegen das Thronfolgerpaay 


ab. Der Exsherzog wurde im Geficht, die Herzogin im Unterteds 
- getroffen. Beide verjdicden, furz nachdem fie in dem Hes 
~ ,gterungsfonat gebradt worden waren, an den erlittenen Wunden: 
Mud) der gweite WAttentdter wurde vethaftet, die erbitterte. 


Menge hat die beiden Uttentiter nahegu gelyndjt, 


ae 
Meiteee Nadridten smieherd! : 
THE MURDERS AT SERAJEVO 28TH OF JUNE * THE EXTRA GIVEN AWAY IN THE BERLIN STREETS 





CHAPTER XXXVI: THEOUTBREAK OF WAR - IN GER 
MANY -THE NEWS IN BERLIN OF THE MURDERS AT SERAJEVO 
VISIT KIEL: GO TO THE RUHR - THEN RETURN TO LONDON 





ee 


THE NEW RAILROAD BRIDGE AND BIG MILLS COLOGNE -: PENCIL SKETCH MADE JULY 30 I9I4 


was in Berlin on June 28, 1914, when 

the murders at Serajevo were commit- 

ted, on my way from Leipzig where 

I had been serving on the British Com- 
mission for the Leipzig Exhibition. I had 
been asked to act as American Commis- 
sioner, but there was no American exhibit. 
It was noon when I left the hotel, and 
the clean streets—so clean that Morley 
Fletcher, the other British representative 
who had just left me, said he would sooner 
eat off them than the table cloth of many 
a British hotel, but he did not know what 
is still called America then—were cov- 
ered with slips ‘of paper and newsboys 
were handing out piles of the same slips, 
and before the cigar stores and post offices 
and public buildings men on chairs were 
reading aloud the despatch which, instead 
of being sold as an extra, was given away. 
There seemed to be no excitement, but the 
soldiers had disappeared and I never saw 
a uniform after that hour, save in trains, 
or when one or two regiments in march- 
ing order arrived at the railroad stations 
or started from them in the night. I did 
not regard things as serious and no one 
else seemed to. I met, called on and dined 
with Germans, and with Americans on 


the Fourth of July in Berlin, to see what 
an American Fourth was likein Germany. 
] Nase a week or so, I went to Ham- 

burg, then to Kiel, with some German 
friends. Everything was as usual, except 
that the harbor was full of warships with 
steam up, and I was not allowed to see the 
new ship lock I had come to draw. But I 
did see from the launch of the Royal Yacht 
Club we went about in, a ship-yard and 
made up my mind to come back the next 
day alone and draw it. Some friends had 
driven me to Kiel in their car. That eve- 
ning, as I was leaving their house, the 
father, a man of means, said to me: ‘‘I 
hope you wont go back to Kiel to-morrow.’ 
“T think I shall,”’ said I. ‘‘Well, I wish 
you would not; you must have seen that 
wherever we went you were watched.”’ 
“But that is nothing. I have my official 
papers from the American Ambassador. I 
am all right.”’ ““You are all right,’’ said 
he, ‘‘but I was with you all day and it 
may not be all right for me.’’ ‘Of course 
I wont go,’’ said I. And then back again 
at Berlin, one night I dined with another 
German friend and I happened to say 
something not too flattering about the 
Kaiser. The German dropped his knife and 


[1914 } 


326 


fork. “‘Never,’’ said he, ‘‘let me hear you 
say anything against my King and my Em- 
peror in my house.”’ The dinner, served by 
his old nurse, ended solemnly. And then 
he said, ‘I'll take you back to the hotel in 
the car.’’ We started 
and he drove likemad 
a little way through 
the park, and then he 
stopped. ‘I suppose 
you thought it quaint 
what I said.’’ ‘‘Yes,’’ 
said I, ‘‘as we were 
all alone save your 
nurse.’’’' How do you 
know we were alone 
and what do you 
know of my nurse? I 
happened to find out, 
however, that it was 
known you were din- 
ing with me.”’ And 
another day at a café 
I tried to sit at an 
empty table. ‘‘For 
God's sake dont: 
thats the officers’ 
table,’’ I was told. 
That was Germany 
before the war. I 
stayed on; I drew, I printed lithographs 
at the Pan Press by day and I dined by 
night on the Wannsce and the Spree. 
T HE day before I left Berlin I went to 
Cook's office to get my ticket and 
some money changed. It was jammed with 
scared things, cowardly oafs and weeping 
schoolma’ams. I got what I wanted, be- 
cause I travel with credentials instead of 
American tourist cheques, and a suit case 
instead of half a dozen trunks. I stopped 
in Westphalia for ten days and again ex- 
tras were given away when the ultimatum 
was sent by Austria and a demonstration 
was held in Oberhausen when war was 





JOSEPH PENNELL PRINTING AT THE PAN 
PRESS BERLIN JULY I9I4 - FROM A DRY 
POINT BY PROFESSOR PAUL VON HERMANN 


CHAPTER XXXVI-THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


declared with Russia. Once in Oberhausen 
a policeman questioned me as I was draw- 
ing, but the people laughed at him, and 
once at Ruhrort, I was told not to draw 
or even to stop on the Rhine bridge where 
I had worked the 
year before; but Isaw 
no signs of war; nor 
any soldiers. They 
had gone. And it was 
not till that August 
morning when I left 
Cologne on the last 
passenger train that 
ran through, ina com- 
partment by myself— 
the carriage had come 
from Basel and they 
or threw a drunken Eng- 
lishman out of it— 
that I saw the ticket- 
less tourists shud- 
dering outside the 
station and their 
mountains of trunks 
inside. At some stopa 
priest got inmy com- 
partment but he 
would not talk. No 
one would talk. At 
the Dutch frontier, I think it was Breda, 
the station was filled with Dutch troops, 
but they paid no attention to me and it 
was not till we reached Flushing that the 
first Englishman I saw said ‘‘War is de- 
clared.”’ 
E crossed the Channel, we came up 
vi" the Thames crowded with warships, 
and we steered not to Port Victoria but to 
’somewhere”’ on the Medway, and finally 
reached London. That was the last train 
and the last boat for four years from Berlin 
to London and from Switzerland via Col- 
ogne to England. I got my drawings and 
prints out—the Germans let them go. The 


[1914] 





THE OUTBREAK OF WAR - ALL PHILADELPHIA ESCAPES 


British destroyed them later. That is war 
that we knew and know nothing of here, 
though we talked more about it than all 
the people of Europe put together. 
iB ONDON was filled with half-crazed, 
utterly scared Americans. ‘All Phila- 
delphia,’’ relations and friends, huddled 
and shuddered together at the Savoy. 
Mountains of trunks, checked to London 
and consigned to the American Express 
Company, filled St. Martin’s Churchyard. 





GRAIN ELEVATOR HAMBURG HARBOR : LITHOGRAPH - DRAWN FOR THE PAN PRESS JULY I9I4 


C7, 





The basement of the Savoy or Cecil, I for- 
get which, was turned into a refuge for 
the stranded. A Committee was formed; 
I was put on it and forced to contribute to 
aid people who, each and all of them, 
could have bought me out—all scared to 
death because they could not cash their 
cheques, could not get back with their 
friends on the steamers they wanted, and 
had momentarily got separated from their 
baggage, and they had no passports. But 


[1914] 


328 


there were many serious and pathetic cases 
—they were not the ones who shouted for 
help—they looked after themselves silently. 
The others howled, yelled, wailed, chewed, 
and one day Page, the Ambassador, came 
into the Committee Room and they fell 
on him and over him and each other till 
finally, to get a hearing, he climbed on a 
table, and then they wept and cheered and 
grinned and the whole room screamed to- 
gether “I want to go home!’’ And Page 
replied—or tried to, for he could not be 
heard for a time, and when he could all he 
could say was, ‘‘Be calm! Be calm!’’ and 
as they would not, he yelled ‘“‘BE CAAM!”’ 
and jumped from the table. Finally, some- 
how, they did get home, millionaires in 
the steerage, bums sent by the American 
Society in first class cabins. All the Phila- 
delphians huddled together, and all the 
German spies got American passports, and 
the schoolma’ams and the tourists were 
shipped somehow, and more came over in 


* LITHOGRAPH - DRAWN FOR 


[1914] 


CHAPTER XXXVI-THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


that exodus from London of gallant and 
fearless Americans, or of people who so 
described themselves, than in all the War. 
And these were the people who shouted, 
‘We won the War,’ when they were back. 
And at a lunch to Cardinal Mercier in 
New York, they one after the other, yelled 
and howled, ‘‘I won the War,”’ and when 
they had all finished the Cardinal arose 
and spoke and, as he ended, he said, ‘‘And 
me, too—they say—I won the War,” just 
as quietly as when I sat beside him at the 
Royal Belgian Academy's one hundred and 
fiftieth anniversary meeting in Brussels in 
1922-—we are both members—and I thought 
the long speeches in British French and 
Japanese French and Czecho-Slovakian 
French, and especially Middle-West Ameri- 
can French, had put him to sleep, but at 
one glorious burst of mispronunciation he 
slowly raised one eyelid and gave me such 
a wink—he is a great man, the Cardinal. 
A great man in and out of useless War. 





ea oy ‘ scoein 


THE PAN PRESS JUNE 1914 


> =, 


CHAPTER XXXVII° WAR WORK IN ENGLAND: GIVEN 
PERMISSION TO WORKIN MUNITION FACTORIES:-ARRESTED 
AS A SPY - DRAWINGS EXHIBITED IN THE GUILD HALL: GIVEN 
A LUNCH BY THE LORD MAYOR - H. G. WELLS WRITES OF 


cin ag haa array 4 " 








SEARCHLIGHTS BEHIND ST. PAUL'S - LITHOGRAPH I9I4 + IN THE WAR MUSEUM LONDON 


w ayear anda halfI saw War Work in 
three countries, in each with the sanc- 
tion, permission and at the invitation 
of the Government of that country. 
No one else had such an opportunity. In 
England, I suggested to Mr. Lloyd George, 
through Mr. Page, the American Ambas- 
sador, that I should make munition draw- 
ings, and, when I had shown them publicly, 
M. Albert Thomas, through M. Henry 
Davray, invited me to France to draw 


there. In France I failed and I came home, 
where I wanted to come, and before I had 
been in the country a week, I was asked 
to Washington. Many people saw much 
more of the Front in many more countries 
than I; but no one in any country was 
allowed to wander alone and do his own 
work in his own way as I was, when and 
where I wished. I did not go and come to 
draw the War, but the War was the reason 
for my coming and going. Imademy draw- 


[1914] 


ea ne é 


BRITISH IDENTITY BOOK ISSUED TO JOSEPH PENNELL ON HIS RET 





NS 


ms a oe pert eG 1 fi 
URN FROM AMERICA IN 1916 


AT BOW STREET LONDON AND COUNTERSIGNED BY LOCAL OFFICIALS WHEN HE VISITED 


ings and prints of War Work not to help 
to win the War or to try to stop the War, 
but because the War gave me the chance 
to make them—to continue the work I 
had been doing for years. I do not believe 
in war. I abominate it. It wrecked my 
life; it ruined my plans; it smashed my 
ideals and beliefs. But it was the cause of 
my seeing, in their greatest activity, those 
phases in the Wonder of Work which for 
years I had been trying to draw, for there 
never was such industrial energy in the 
world as during the War. ‘‘The War was 
unnecessary, not inevitable, and,’’ as John 
Burns said to me, *‘could easily have been 
avoided.’’ But as it came, there was norea- 
son—much as I loathed it—why I should 
not record its picturesqueness, and this was 
what, under the most extraordinary con- 


ditions, I tried to do. In the piping times 
of peace I would not have been allowed in 
many of these, then peaceful workshops. 
When all their energy was devoted to pro- 
ducing machines to kill, I was asked into 
closed and barred and guarded shops and 
mills and yards to watch them do it. I 
did not go to learn how many thousand 
shells could be made in a day, but how 
wonderful they were in the making. I can 
say nothing of the protective power of 
armor plate, though I have seen how easily 
it could be pierced on a testing ground, 
how incredibly dramatic is the rolling of 
it, and when once in a while a fool busi- 
ness coward tried to keep me out, an order 
from the Government admitted me to his 
usually unimportant shop. I understand 
nothing of engineering, but I know that 


Lr9rs ] 








WAR WORK IN ENGLAND - AT AN AEROPLANE FACTORY 


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DIFFERENT PLACES - 
DIFFICULT WITH IT DURING THE WAR - 


engineers are the greatest architects and 
the most pictorial builders since the Greeks, 
and this is why they are carrying on tradi- 
tion. While other artists were prevented 
from drawing a church or a tree, I was en- 
couraged to draw death-dealing guns, the 
building of battleships, the home coming 
of dirigibles which not only other artists, 
but the public, the combatants even, were 
not allowed to see. I had all of the Front 
I wanted, all the horrors I wanted, all the 
misery and pain I wanted, but I could not 
have enough of the teeming, seething en- 
ergy that the War brought forth.When, at 
what other time, could Ihave found mills 
for making plough-shares turned into gun 
factories? Chemical works for making 
paints producing poison gas? Shipyards for 
building yachts fabricating submarines ? 








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+f. oa ae oa 
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5 A 


L& CEaleTRATION ENRORSPI 


Sy. ar B. WRIGK a 
He ie ( 
“lee EGON 


LIT ENS wy 





TRAVELING IN ENGLAND WAS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT THIS BOOK AND 
IT WAS STAMPED IN EACH TOWN BY THE POLICE 


I N the early summer of 1916, after months 
of unraveling red tape, I went to the 
aeroplane factory at Farnham. HereI was © 
given every facility to work, and I did 
work, and everything was done for me by 
the Commanding Officer, whom I hap- 
pened to know, but before he became an 
officer. Planes were posed on the plain, 
and shops were thrown open and machines 
were flown, and I learned then how beau- 
tiful, how graceful, how fine in line they 
are. But just outside the factory was a 
big balloon shed that I wanted to draw 
and this shed was under another depart- 
ment of War Work, and I was told I must 
get another permit to draw it. So away I 
went, across the forbidden plain, to the 
Commander's quarters, with a letter to 
him. In his office I found several officers 


[1916 | 


oe 


in uniform, and I went up to the one with 
the most gold braid and red bands on his 
cap, and the largest number of marks on 
his shoulder straps and tabs on his collar, 
and the most ribbons on his breast, and 
asked him if he was Major—I forget his 
name. He glared, he started, he was dumb; 
he could only point to a little person in 
shirt sleeves in a corner. And theu it be- 
gan to dawn upon me that I did not know 
the difference between a Major General 
and a Major in the British Army. The 
Major said he could grant no permission; 
it must come from the Minister of War. 
Still, I was there, and so long as I did not 
draw I was not bothered. I walked about 
the plain. I might just as well have drawn; 
nothing would have happened; the ama- 
teur officers would not have known what 
to do; I was not in the Manual. I wandered 
into the great balloon shed, and no notice 
was taken of me; the mighty, mysterious 
interior was like the Zeppelin shed I had 
drawn in Leipzig just before the war ; but 
the great downs were unlike anything I 
had seen. Into a great grass-covered, gently 
sloping crater the planes swept, and all 
about all sorts of aircraft lay, all shapes 
and sizes and colors—mostly experimental 
machines—for nothing had been stand- 
ardized. Each lay or sat or crouched upon 
the ground in its own fashion; each had 
a separate form, a different color, and over 
all hummed and whirred and roared flocks 
of others, up and down, and round and 
round, ascending and descending. How 
beautiful they were. But I knew so little 
of them I could not draw them; and how 
I wanted to. And so I came away, never 
to return, for permission was never given, 
and it was not till I had tried to do what 
I could from memory, though I had not 
studied them enough to remember them, 
and so bought illustrated post cards sold 
at the railroad stations, and printed what 


CHAPTER XXXVII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


I had done, that I received the official re- 
fusal, the official notice that I would not 
be allowed to draw what I had drawn. 
As I came out of the factory that day, I 
was stopped and my papers and drawings 
examined before I was allowed to go to 
the station. On the way I was overtaken 
by boxed planes marked ‘‘Mesopotamia”’; 
and while I waited there a Red Cross train 
passed, carrying back junk, made by war 
machines at the Front, some of which I had 
seen—heroes—fools—who had allowed 
themselves to be ruined to make money for 
munition makers; that is war. Cowards’ 
work. Brave men would not fight, and if 
they did not, there would be no more war. 
But the world is full of standardized cow- 
atds who do as they are told by their 
overlords, the ‘Captains of Industry.”’ 

FEW days later I went to a great in- 

dustrial town in the Midlands, Leeds 
—now I can give the name—and here I 
was Officially received by the Command- 
ing Officer and granted motor cars and 
permits and passes and badges. One day, 
as I worked, a crowd gathered in the dis- 
tance and I knew there would be trouble. 
Then a policeman appeared, and I showed 
him my pass signed by his Chief. It meant 
nothing to him, and so he said I must go 
along with him to his Inspector. There is 
no use objecting in peace time, and it would 
have been mad in war, as he had a grow- 
ing crowd at his back. Off we went. The 
crowd grew, for work was over and the 
pubs were full. He suggested that we get 
ona car, though he said the police station 
was only a few hundred yards away. I 
replied we would walk. The crowd grew, 
mostly behind us, and so I asked him to 
get behind me, for we were in that part of 
England where the natives “‘’eave ‘arf a 
brick at the furiner’’, and the foreigner is 
any one theydo not know. Nobrickscame, 
but the crowd grew, mostly women. They 


[1916 | 





WAR WORK IN ENGLAND - ARRESTED AS A SPY 333 





SEARCHLIGHTS OVER CHARING CROSS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR I914 - SEEN FROM 
OUR WINDOWS ON ADELPHI TERRACE > THE LIGHTS WERE TRIED EACH EVENING IN LONDON 


drew closer, they shouted louder, and 
then some one yelled, ‘‘German spy!” 
and the rest took it up, and if the station 
had not been near, Ido not think I should 
have reached it, for the street was solid 
with women, every one shrieking, and the 
Bobby quite unarmed. I certainly did not 
like it. We went into the police office and 
the door was locked ; but the crowd blocked 
the iron-barred windows to see the spy. 
When I showed my papers, they were found 
in order. But the crowd was not. There 
were three policemen inside and at least 
three hundred people in front of the sta- 
tion. The Inspector offered to get a cab 
and send me to the hotel—a horse cab. 


I thanked him and said I had no intention 
of forming the head of a procession which 
might drag me where they wanted or hang 
me by the traces to a lamp-post. But the 
Inspector was a man of brains. A trolley 
line passed the station and he stopped a 
carand held it up for five minutes till the 
track was clear. Then he and the three 
officers found truncheons and sallied out 
with me in their midst. What a yell went 
up. What a rush was made. But we jumped 
on the car and, when the crowd tried to 
get aboard, they had their fingers rapped 
and fell off. The car started full speed, 
leaving the crowd in a minute, and it kept 
on for a mile, despite the protests of the 


[1916 | 


334 CHAPTER XXXVII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 





AT THE FOOT OF THE FURNACES MIDDLESBOROUGH + MAKING PIG IRON - LITHOGRAPH 1916 


passengers who were shot past their stop- 
ping places. Then we slowed down, stopped, 
the passengers got off, the police got off, 
and I returned quietly to the hotel by 
which the car passed. In that half-hour 
I learned how it must feel to be a con- 
demned murderer or a captured spy. The 
mere fact that a spy would never carry a 
big sketch block, a big bag of chalks and 
tools, and a sketching stool only convinced 
the people that I was a spy. Why does war 
make people so idiotic? Why do people 
fear an artist more than the enemy? Art 
is powerful and the people hate it. They 
feel it is above them and they hate it all 
the worse. 


HE next day I went back in a Govern- 

ment car, and tried to draw the won- 
derful things I saw: the great steel plants 
with their towering furnaces, their cavern 
depths, their huge cranes, their solemn 
presses, and here and there the little men 
who run them. And then too, I saw for 
the first time the great shell factories at 
Sheffield filled with women, saw for the 
first time women at men’s work— end- 
less women, thousands and thousands of 
them—and for the first time, too, the 
changing of shifts ; saw the workers pour 
out in a solid mass that would sweep one 
away. And I learned what War Work was. 
At the dinner hour, I saw the other side 


[1916 | 











WAR WORK IN ENGLAND - ADVENTURES IN MUNITION FACTORIES 335 


~ 





. 


TURNING THE BIG GUN VICKERS-MAXIM SHEFFIELD +: LITHOGRAPH 1916 + THIS AND THE 


OTHERS ARE IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM PRINT ROOM : PUBLISHED IN WAR WORK IN ENGLAND 


of War Work in these towns. I was asked 
to an oak-paneled room and sat at lunch 
with the directors, the managers, the chief 
engineers, and the guests, who were some- 
times people of world-wide fame, some- 
times visiting missions, and sometimes roy- 
alties. And the directors recommended their 
sherry and praised the salmon and the mut- 
ton, and offered champagne, and there came, 
with the dessert, coffee and big cigars and 
old port, and souvenirs, pocket knives they 
made before the War. We stole no spoons— 
America was not then in the War. Though 
the whistles blew outside and the workers 
swarmed back, we sat on. But I found that 
after such a lunch, drawing was a burden. 
How these men could work again was a 


mystery. But I am not a director, and I 
decided that their luncheon table was no 
place for me, though at times I had to go. 
A cake of chocolate, or hunger, is better 
to work on, and one looks forward to 
dinner with delight. Besides, at the back 
of my head was the fact that these people 
were making fortunes killing other people. 
And said one of them, “The Kaiser aint 
so bad. Why, he was here just before the 
War and we showed him and his people 
the whole outfit !’" And he will sit at their 
table again, or his kind will. Probably 
they have already, for the promotion of 
war is a part of their business. Another 
time I passed a day locked up in Newcastle- 
on-Tyne because the Police Inspector was 


{1916 } 


336 


so frightened of me that he forgot to read 
my pass and carried it off to headquarters, 
leaving me in his station right on the river 
where I could see everything I should not 
have seen; and I drew itall. Another day 
I was not allowed to work in some of the 
Tyne ship yards; but the trams from New- 
castle to North and South Shields went 
right by the yards on one side the river, 
and so did the trains on the other, and all 
I had to do was to look out of the window 
as they passed, and the drawings were made 
from memory as soon as I got back to the 
hotel. The English system of permits was 
ridiculous. I could go, and did go, to 
Woolwich Arsenal, though it was so im- 
portant a post that the Germans tried to 
bomb it several times, and pretty near suc- 
ceeded. The subjects I found there and drew 
there so impressed some of the British R.A.’s 
that they cribbed and imitated them as 
well as they could, and very badly they 
did it. At Vickers-Maxim’s at Barrow I 
was not allowed to go near the hangar 
where they were copying a Zeppelin that 
had been brought down, though, as there 
was a train that ran past the open end of 
the hangar, I had only to look out of the 
carriage window and remember what I 
saw on the trips I made up and down the 
line. There was endless red tape, endless 
arrests, and the censor, the authorities, the 
formalities. Permits were given me only 
to be withdrawn ; passes were issued only 
to be dishonored. Still I went to Muni- 
tion Works all over England and Wales, 
from Woolwich to Whitworth’s, from Bar- 
row to Birmingham; and the farther I went, 
the more horrible I found it. Besides, the 
more I suggested and accomplished, the 
less the artists of England, though they 
never said so, wanted me to do, and the 
more work was put into their hands and 
taken from me. I started at the same time 
that Muirhead Bone was told, so I heard, 


CHAPTER XXXVII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


that he could join the Army and go to the 
Front or go to prison ; luckily for England, 
he chose to draw. He was sent to France, 
to the Front, and he proved to the author- 
ities—how different they were from ours 


‘—that it was impossible to do anything 


there, for nothing could be seen in the 
trenches, and if you stuck your head up to 
see it, you probably lost it. If the feeling 
of the British against me was growing, so 
was the whole English feeling towards 
the United States, which was put into 
words by an eminent Englishman shortly 
before I left the country: ‘Nobody asked 
you to come into the War; nobody wanted 
you in the War; but, as you have come in, 
why did you not come two years ago?”’ 
Altogether, I decided it was time to stop. 
I published the work I had finished, War 
Work IN ENGLAND, and the British Gov- 
ernment took over the book and issued 
that—and the originals are in the British 
Museum Print Room and the National 
War Museum. 
M y lithographs were shown all over 
the country and in other countries. 
The first exhibition was at the Guildhall 
in London—and here I ought to say some- 
thing about the author of the Introduc- 
tion to the Catalogue of my exhibited 
War drawings, and introducer of my Eng- 
lish War Work. While I was doing it, I 
used to run across H. G. Wells from time 
to time. I knew he was the only man in 
the world who can make literature out of 
machinery, the only man who does not 
have to plaster his work of this sort with 
sentiment and uplift and drivel to hide 
his want of knowledge, as every other 
author does when he tries to prove his 
knowledge, and only proves he uses pho- 
tographs. I would meet Wells at the Re- 
form Club and Broadway Chambers, then 
the mysterious headquarters of the Brit- 
ish War Information Office, and I would - 


{1916 | 





mhstahee 


H. G. WELLS WHO WROTE THE INTRODUCTION TO THE CATALOGUE OF MY EXHIBITIONS OF 
ENGLISH WAR WORK : CHALK DRAWING BY PROF. W. ROTHENSTEIN «: LOANED BY THE ARTIST 


338 


tell him what permits I was getting and 
he would make me jealous by showing 
me what he had got. When the Tanks 
appeared, every one tried to see them, I 
more than any, impressed as I was with 
the mystery of them. I was told they were 
not to be drawn, and as soon as I asked 
permission to draw them I was refused. 
Bone was told to make a drawing of them 
at the Front. But Wells went with Ar- 
nold Bennett to Coventry, or wherever 
they were made—the place was a pro- 
found secret—and he saw all he wanted, 
for he was shut up in one and driven 
furiously round a ploughed field, and had 
his hat smashed and his ribs near broken 
by its jumps; and then the censor would 
not let him print what he wrote—that 
censor who was everywhere and no- 
where. But Wells having seen my draw- 
ings, I persuaded him to come to my 
studio one day, and I locked him up with 
them until he wrote the Introduction to 
the Catalogue of the British Exhibitions 
and of the book, War Work IN ENGLAND. 
The Guildhall Exhibition made me feel 
all the more that I was not particularly 
wanted. Even the critics commented on 
the fact that I a foreigner was drawing 
what Britons were not allowed to see. A 
lunch at the Mansion House was given to 
me by the Lord Mayor of London on the 
opening of my Exhibition, and Wells sat 
on one side of me and the Lord of Sun- 
light Soap on the other, I was only an 
accident; at the function that followed in 
the Guildhall, I did not figure among the 
Jews and city gents who came with the 
Lord Mayor; and Mr. Montagu, the Min- 
ister of Munitions, never mentioned me 
in his speech; even the sign across the 
street announcing the Exhibition did not 
have my name on it. But the British treat 
all foreign artists just the same. No men- 
tion of Paul Bartlett's name was made in 


CHAPTER XXXVII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Tue Times when his Statue of Blackstone 
was given the country—we foreigners 
“were taking bread from British mouths,’ 
and when Wells recently wrote of War 
illustrations and illustrators he forgot all 
but the British. In the Provinces, in Scot- 
land, Wales and Ireland, the Lord Mayors 
and Provosts and Principals took posses- 
sion of my Exhibition, and at not one of 
the numerous openings was I even asked 
to assist. I turned over the drawings and 
lithographs to the British Museum Print 
Room and the National War Museum, 
and to this day I have never heard a word 
about them. Altogether, I decided that I 
had had enough of drawing War Work in 
England. 
WEEs Work ruined workmen all over 
the world. I learned this fact for 
myself in England first and after in Amer- 
ica. I was not long enough in the French 
factories to judge; but all that I have 
heard proves that the French workmen 
did not escape. Men and women raised in 
a day, in an hour, from the poverty of 
thirty shillings a week to thirty pounds, 
could not stand it. In Middlesborough, 
England, I saw a man come into a hotel 
before nine o'clock in the evening, when 
the bars shut, order two or three mag- 
nums of champagne, call in his pals and 
borrow beer mugs, pay in five pound 
notes, drink the champagne, go out and 
ask to seea ‘‘pianner’’, and end by buying 
a grand, taking a roll of notes out of his 
pocket to pay for it, and sending it home 
in a donkey cart; and still having enough 
left to get drunk on. That was living the 
life in Christian, God-fearing England ; 
and the bosses were doing the same. I 
have seen both at it. Here, in America, 
workmen came to the shipyards in big- 
ger cars than the presidents of the compa- 
nies they were working for, and ate their 
dry lunches like hogs at a trough. And, 


[1916 } 


WAR WORK IN ENGLAND : AND THE WAR WORKERS HERE 


though the riveters worked in the ship- 
yards, most of the rest bummed. That was 
““patriotism—the last resort of a scoun- 
drel’’—and it paid. Paid the slave drivers 
and the patriotic dollar a year men who 
fooled the stupid workers by high wages 
into the belief that these would always 
last and that they would not have to fight. 
They did not fight but now they are fight- 
ing, fighting the bosses who fooled them 
—who, for their own gain, ruined the 
world. But so long as the business man 





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PRESSING SHELLS IN A MUNITION FACTORY AT 





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539 


can fill his pockets all is well, he has filled 
them, made the world dry to make more 
money, money is his only god, and he has 
made us the richest and the most hated 
race in theworld.The businessman always 
was a fool, but he never was taken seri- 
ously before. Now that he takes himself 
as a prophet and savior, the end of all has 
come and the shopkeeper has brought it 
about, aided by fighting men whose trade 
goes without war, and cowards who fear 
wart which they bring on by preparedness. 





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LEEDS - PENCIL SKETCH OF FIGURES 1916 


{ 1916 | 


CHAPTER XXXVUI7 IN FRANCE IN WAR - INVITED TO 
DRAW WAR WORK IN FRANCE: GO TO PARIS: RECEIVE PER 
MIT TO VISIT VERDUN: REFUSE TO GO: RETURN TO LONDON 


eal 


a PUSH USPRETS teen oer UTeeT URN DUT MeN kwe rs TT: 





THE IRON GATE CHARLEROI - LITHOGRAPH - PROBABLY DESTROYED AT THE BEGINNING OF 


THE WAR 


HEN I| had finished my War 
Work in England and it had 
been shown by the British 
Government all over Great 
Britain, the French Government invited 
me to France to work there. Who was to 
write up my French drawings,which were 
never made, I never knew, though the in- 
vitation to visit France was for Mrs. Pen- 
nell and myself. So she might have done 
it. I did not want to see horrors, though 
every one from Mrs. Humphry Ward to 
the French Government thought I should. 


: THIS GATE WAS A PROTECTION AGAINST STRIKERS BUT SCARCE AGAINST GUNS 


I asked Mrs. Ward to write about my 
drawings after she had praised them. That 
paragon of dreariness never replied to my 
letter. I was so crushed by the War that 
I thought I should never work again. All 
my life was over, I was sure. What did I 
care? What did any one care? What good 
was it? One day Davray got me to the 


French Consulate and, after hours of ar- © 


guing, all was arranged, and also at the 
United States Consulate, and Bow Street, 
and some British office, and I had per- 
mission to start for France. It was only 


[1917] 





IN FRANCE IN WAR: THE JOURNEY TO PARIS 


at the last minute I knew when and where 
the train was leaving from in London, 
and when and where I should get a taxi, 
and there were more formalities at the 
station. Finally I was locked in a com- 
partment by myself, in a diplomatic car- 
riage, with the sign “‘Do not talk. You 
do not know who is listening,’’ in it. 
Though I was the guest of France, I was 
told, I had to pay all my own expenses on 
the way over. So sick of it was I when 
the train got to Southampton that, could 
I have got out, I would have come back 
to London; but I was locked in. On the 
pier, too, there were endless formalities 
and cross-questionings, endless visés, and 
I did not care a cent whether I went or 
whether I was not allowed to go; but I 
was finally sent on board the steamer for 
Havre. I found I had to stay, could not 
come off, for there was a sentry at the 
foot of the gangplank to keep us on board. 
There was nothing to do but eat a British 
supper of whisky and beef, then drink 
more whisky, and devour old railroad 
guides in the smoking room—the only 
literature on British Channel boats—and 
go to bed. We were not allowed to stay 
on deck, and we could not look out of 
the portholes, for they were boarded up. 
What of it? What of anything? I went to 
bed and to sleep. What if we were right 
in the midst of submarines and mines? 
What could Ido? What could any one do? 
It was hopeless. I fell asleep and did not 
know when the steamer left. I must have 
had lots of whisky, for I slept till I was 
wakened in the morning outside the port 
of Havre by the steward. When I went on 
deck I found we were right alongside a 
- torpedoed ship. What did it matter? That 
was the feeling. You could do nothing— 
there was nothing to do. It was the same 
in London, in Paris, coming home, till I 
got home and found the people did not 


341 


know anything about the War. Not even 
those who went—who were made to go 
—abroad. No one talked over there about 
the horror that, day and night, hung over 
them; here every one cackled about things 
they knew nothing about, that is, when 
they dared to talk at all. In Havre, al- 
ways a horrid hole, there were the same 
formalities and I could not find that my 
official letters were of the least use; and 
by the time I got through with the rows 
of inspectors and examiners and inquisi- 
tors—how I hoped they would turn me 
back—the British officials who came on 
the boat had grabbed the buses and the 
trams which were supposed to take us 
from the dock to the railroad. We were 
told there would bea train, but there was 
none, and I finally took a trolley car and 
eventually arrived at the station. I hoped 
that the train had gone, but it had not; 
and then that I would not be allowed to 
pass the further line of officials, to whom 
now gendarmes had been added, before I 
could get to the ticket window. But no 
one seemed to want to stop me, and I 
found a place in a carriage with an Eng- 
lish woman—the wife of an officer, she 
told me—and, so far as I remember, not 
only the only woman, but the only civil- 
ian passenger on board except myself. But 
she, as she would say, ‘‘was in thearmy.”’ 

T was like this during four years—the 
I trafic between two great countries 
stopped that Army and Navy officers and 
munition makers, not one of whom is 
worth a cent to the world, should make 
fortunes and win decorations, degrees and 
notoriety, by ruining the world. That is 
war. And the end is not in sight. I saw 
no difference on the way save that the 
train was hours longer in getting to Paris, 
and the stations were jammed with fe- 
males—stars and crosses on them—and 
generals—stars and crosses on them—and 


[1917] 


342 


that each bridge had a worthless old man 
with a worthless old gun guarding it, and 
that in some of the fields women and 
children were working, and with them, 
here and there, a man in uniform back on 
leave. There was nothing of this sort in 
England. At last, about noon, there was 
Paris. No formalities; porters to be had, 
but no taxis. So I hired a man and he 
hunted around the neighborhood till he 
found a taxi. I was lucky and only had 
to wait an hour. I went to my old hotel 
where I had been always received with 
joy. The office was empty, the dining 
room had unmade beds in it, and not till 
I thought of it did I realize that the hag 
who paid no attention to me was the 
landlady of three years ago. Across the 
street it was the same, but I stayed there. 
Then the formalities began, but I paid no 
attention to them, though I was told to. 
I left that to the French Government, 
whose guest I was, though they had not 
met me witha salute or a motor car. I had 
no tabs on my collar or crosses on my 
breast. I never wore a uniform, or a tin 
hat, at the Front. I was starved. I went 
to the Duval around the corner. Sad and 
dreary, not a foreigner, where before it 
had been full of them; but the anciens en 
retraite were all there, and with them 
families welcoming back their sons from 
the Front on a few days’ leave, and there 
and everywhere families in black. There 
was little variety, little that was good to 
eat at the Duval’s. Yet without a murmur 
the anciens and the families were paying 
seven francs fifty for what they had paid 
two francs twenty-five three years before, 
and the franc had not depreciated then. 
This was what I had come for. I went to 
the Maison de la Presse and found with 
my papers the officials I was to see, pass- 
ing room after room full of the young 
men who, on the Boulevards or Piccadilly 


CHAPTER XXXVIII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


or Fifth Avenue, or Washington, used to 
exhibit themselves in the latest fashions. 
Now they were in the War, in Paris, in 
London, in Washington, mostly in uni- 
form—captains and majors here—but just 
as far from the Front and as well paid as 
possible. I can never forget Amy Lowell’s 
poem—or did she write it? ‘“‘Oh Majors, 
Oh Washington, Oh Hot,’’ and the Ma- 
jors and the heat were still in Washington 
in uniform, till after the end of the fight- 
ing. The officials were awaiting me in 
the Maison de la Presse. Everything was 
arranged. A liaison officer was to accom- 
pany me. I was to go to Verdun, I was to 
see everything. Could I go to Rheims? 
They did not know, that depended on the 
Germans. I pointed out that I did not 
want to go into danger. Could I not see 
it froma distance? They did not know. I 
went back with my pocketbook stuffed 
with permits. I walked by the river to 
the corner of the Grand Palais and started 
up toward the Champs-Elysées. Out of 
the corner door came a train of objects 
which in his maddest moments Jean Veber 
never drew, or even imagined: bits of men 
—a thing ina baby carriage without arms 
or legs; another thing without a face; 
another thing without bowels. That was 
War, that was Paris, in May, 1917. They 
were coming from the building where 
the Salon was held, turned into a school 
for junk—heroes for the moment, junk 
for the rest of their lives. That was War. 
A distant crash; away up in the sky a Ger- 
man taube, dropping bombs among the 
chestnut blossoms, and then more crashes. 
These were what my permits would let 
me see close at hand. And in the dis- 
tance explosions, and in the night more 
explosions, and I sat up in bed. Why 
should I see it? Why should I go to the 
Front? Why should I go to see things I 
had always avoided? And again the win- 


[1917] 








PROBABLY DESTROYED 


IRON WORKS - 


LITHOGRAPH 1907 + 


. 


THE LAKE OF FIRE CHARLEROI 


344 CHAPTER XXXVIII - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


dows rattled. I would not. Why should 
I? I did not bring the War on. I had no 
interest in it. Why should I be sickened 
and deafened and disgusted by sights and 
sounds and smells that I did not want to 
encounter? I would not. And I went to 
sleep. No, nothing disturbed one. What 
could you do, what was the use of being 
disturbed? But I would not go to Verdun. 
I went to sleep again. Instead, in the 
morning, I went to the American Ambas- 
sador, Mr. Sharp. I had letters from Mr. 
Page in London to lots of people. I asked 
him to send me back. ‘‘What, not go to 
Verdun, you, the first civilian to be al- 
lowed to go and stay there? Id like to 
go myself and I know any number of 
Americans who would give anything for 


: "od 


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SOISSONS IN 1922 - WATER COLOR OWNED BY THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND ART 


[1917] 


your chance.”’ I said I would give any- 
thing to get out of it. And he said I 
had better think it over and if I really 
did not want to go—I was not to start 
for two or three days—I had better go and 
tell them at the Maison de la Presse. To 
think it over, I took Germaine for a walk 


and to a café. I wanted to take her to 


Roullier’s but it was smashed and boarded 
up. Why did I want to see that? And half 
the shops in the Avenue de l’Opéra were 
shut too, and all the Quartier closed, de- 
serted—Boom. And for dinner I could 
find nothing but the Brasserie Universelle 
open. And, just as I was getting comfort- 
able, they shut that too—Boom. And 
home. I went to sleep. It was near enough 
to walk, for traffic stopped at 8.30— 








were aS we ee a” ee ee es 








IN FRANCE IN WAR: I RETURN TO LONDON 


Boom. The next day I told them at the 
Maison de la Presse that I was going back 
to England. They were astonished. ‘‘You, 
the guest of France, not go to the Front?”’ 
They had my passport viséed to return, 
they were disgusted, but they gave me 
my permit to go back. They could not 
understand. All they said was, ‘‘What 
will Davray say?’’ Even the next day an 
immaculate infantile Count came to tell 
me I could go to Soissons—it was so 
beautifully destroyed—and see that; and 
I ran into Amand-Dayot, the Inspector 
General of Fine Arts, and he said he had 
been out there and it was a fact. Why 
should I go to the ruins of the lovely 
place I had lived in and worked in and 


MINISTERE DES AFFAIRES ETRANGERES 








PASSY 16-32 


Sas 


face agony and horror where I had known 
peace and beauty?>—Boom again. Never, 
though I knew at the moment if I went 
and did the work, drew the horrors, 
honors and decorations were waiting for 
me. They were not worth it. Early the 
next day, after I had seen the British offi- 
cials with another Count, and got my 
papers in order, back I went to England, 
spending all the afternoon in Havre, given 
over to tabbed and khakied British. More 
formalities; you were even not allowed 
totakeany gold out of France. Then across 
to England—booms and gothas—form- 
alities at Southampton—the slowest sort 
of journey up to London—and I made 
ready then to come home to this country. 


PARIS, 3 RUE FRANCOIS I** 


Le~ ie —. 6 —_ -19) of 


FRENCH GOVERNMENT PERMIT TO VISIT VERDUN 


[1917 | 





CHAPTER XXXIX: AT THE FRONT IN FRANCE - I RE 
TURN AND GO TO VERDUN : SLEEP IN THE CITADEL AND 
JOIN THE MESS - ADVENTURES IN THE DESERTED CITY: A. 
SECOND VISIT TO THE FRONT - UNDER FIRE: ARRIVAL OF 
THE AMERICAN ARMY IN PARIS - I STAY A WEEK IN PARIS 


4 
/ 


PLACE DEVERDUN La 





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Wadd 












‘est autorisé 4 sete 








HEURE bE DE 


aM % 


Aug an.) 


UTC a 6 TOnHEtire 









FACSIMILE OF THE DAILY PERMIT ISSUED AT VERDUN - GOOD FOR JUNE 28 1917 


HE night before I was to leave 

London for New York, an Eng- 

lishman came in and told me I 

ought to go back to France; and 
I did, though the British Government 
warned me that, as one was supposed to 
stay in France six months at a time, I 
could not return to London for a year. I 
had crossed twice already. I got to Paris 
after the same formalities as when I went 
first. It would have been better for me if 
I had been turned back. Though I was 
far from cordially received at the Maison 
de la Presse, I was again given a pass for 
Verdun. There was nothing to see of fight- 
ing on the way there till I reached Bar- 
le-Duc, where I went alone. But from the 
train I saw Meaux, half destroyed, the 


[1917] 


wonderful bridge later burnt, the dam so 
filled with dead men they had to dyna- 
mite them to clear the river. It was near 
there that a chasseur-a-cheval had been 
blown against Meunier’s Chocolate Works, 
all his guts and those of his horse in a 
heap below him. His silhouette stuck on 
the wall. These things were told me by 
Jules Stewart who saw them—little hap- 
penings of the War that do not get into 
the papers. They are not good for drafted 
men to hear till the wretches are part of 
them. The memory of them killed Stew- 
art. There were only the passing trains, 
with their ‘‘32 hommes, 8 chevaux’’, in- 
creased to I do not know how many 
jammed in and on each van, not grinning 
like Americans or singing like Britons 














AT THE FRONT IN FRANCE: I GO TO VERDUN 


with nothing to lose, but solemn, serious 
Frenchmen, knowing that all was at 
stake; and on the road which runs parallel 
with the railway for miles long trains of 
artillery and munitions, and once in a 
while some smoke over the hillora sausage 
balloon bobbing about. Bar-le-Duc came 
at last and, as I got out of the train in the 
station without a roof, I saw, through 
the broken beams, planes and planes and 
planes, and round them little black and 
white puffs of smoke. In London the puffs 
in an air raid were always white and I 
wanted to see this different color scheme. 
But as I looked up, alone in the station 
yard, I was grabbed by the back of the 
neck and yanked under cover by, I found, 


my liaison officer. Sometimes it is a good 


thing to be ignorant of danger. He ex- 
plained to me that the Germans were 
dropping bombs like lead pencils, which 
went right into you and then exploded. 
So I stayed under cover. Some hundred 
people who did not, he told me, were 
killed the Sunday before. A car was pro- 
duced and off we started; but we had 
punctures and blowouts and other things, 
and by the time we arrived at some vil- 
lage, after passing guard after guard—I do 
not know the name of it; all signboards 
were destroyed—the machine was com- 
pletely panned. Then we piled intoa pass- 
ing camion, without a spring, and with a 
cover without a window; then in the hot 
dust outside and the stinking sweat of the 
soldiers inside, forty or fifty kilometers 
on to Verdun. Nothing to see but Afri- 
cans and Orientals repairing the roads, as 
they had been sweeping the streets of 
Paris, a destroyed narrow-guage railroad, 
and dumps and dumps of munitions. As 
we left Bar-le-Duc the road had been full 
of marching troops and munition trains, 
but as we approached Verdun, they dis- 
appeared, they vanished, and we came in 


wiry 
quite alone. Through the broken city 
gate we bumped. There was no bother 
about passes with my officer. If you came 
with the soldiers you were all right. Up 
the few yards to the Citadel, and we 
stopped before its open iron doors, lead- 
ing to a tunnel lit with twinkling lights. 
There were branching tunnels, but I was 
shown to a stairway in the rock and 
climbed and climbed and climbed and 
climbed, till, panting, I got to rooms and 
offices cut in the rock, and there my per- 
mit was stamped, and I was given others, 
and greeted effusively by Colonels and 
Majors, and told I was to meet the Gen- 
eral. Then I went down the winding 
stairs, and in one of the tunnels I was 
shown my bed-chamber, about seven feet 
by five. There was a bed in it and a wash- 
stand, a box, a chair and a light, and 
there were about one hundred cubicles 
like it down the tunnel, separated by cur- 
tains. I went further and saw a café chan- 
tant, or a theater in another tunnel, and 
then came to the dining room in a third, 
and there were still more that I did not 
explore. 
I was not introduced, after all, to the 
General, who sometimes dined apart 
and sometimes with the Colonels and 
Captains and me. The dinners were excel- 
lent and so was the wine, and the charge 
for the daily mess was three francs thirty 
centimes. It included coffee, bread and 
butter, honey and ham, for breakfast; 
a good lunch, with wine; and a good 
dinner, with wine and coffee. You could 
not have lived like this for this price be- 
fore the War. I was told to eat well, as it 
might be my last meal. I do not see why 
an Army officer should be called a hero 
for doing the work he is mighty well paid 
to do, and being treated also far better 
than the people whom he ruins by his 
useless profession. But war is necessary 


[1917] 


348 


and warriors ate heroes to the people, and 
the people are fools or they would not 
fight—if they did not fight there would 
beno more war. went todinner. But what 
surprised me more than the dinner was 
the officers. I sat by a Major of Artillery, 
silent and grim under one of the printed 
signs, ‘‘They shall not pass.’’ He told me 
he had been there for the three years and 
would not leave till it was over. Another 
told me we were perfectly safe, as the top 
of the citadel down to the solid rock was 
shot away and no further damage could 
be done it. Another told me that I was 
the first foreign civilian allowed to stay 
over a day. And they all told me the hor- 
ror of it was that you must always be on 
the alert. For days and weeks nothing 
happened, and then, in a moment, every- 
thing happened. But what struck me most 
was that the minute dinner was finished, 
the diners; instead of lingering over their 
coffee left without a word. After din- 
ner, in the twilight, I walked down the 
street I have often cycled over. No one 
questioned me. The fact that I was openly 
there and not in uniform showed that I 
was all right. It got so dark I could only 
see that half the houses were destroyed 
and that there were holes in the pave- 
ment. I went to the far town gate. All was 
black beyond, up the hillsides, though 
there were flashes beyond the hills and 
endless booming far away. AsI came back 
I heard American, and in a ruined house 
by the gate were some boys from Phila- 
delphia, a hospital unit. They had come 
before the draft and had seen only one 
German—he was dead—‘‘we found him 
by his smell, for he was very dead.’’ That 
he was quite as good as themselves, prob- 
ably much better, and had been compelled 
to fight while they had come for the fun 
of it, never occurred to them. ‘‘Shooting 
Germans ts better fun than shooting reed 


CHAPTER XXXIX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


birds,’’ another Philadelphia hero wrote 
his parents, and the heroic letter was read 
to me by his father. Back I came the 
same way in the dark; I did not dare to 
wander. Some one might not like my 
looks and take a shot at me before asking 
for my pass. And then to bed. The door of 
the tunnel was shut, but a knock opened 
a little wicket and then the door. I got 
undressed, lay down, fell asleep. How 
long after I woke up, I do not know, suf- 
focating, dying. Solid were the smells, as 
solid as the snores of the hundred men 
packed in the tunnel, with only canvas 
walls between them, really only a sewer 
with a gutter in it, and an electric-light 
wire fusing and melting the rubber round 
it. I do not believe a sewer is as bad. I 
gasped, I panted. I was afraid to lie down 
to die, or to cry out lest I should disturb 
the others. Finally I became insensible, I 
suppose with sleep, but I thought it the 
end. Early I woke and came out, and 
when I told them of my night, ‘‘Oh, you 
wont die,’’ said the Major, ‘‘but you will 
think you will as long as you stay here.”’ 
And I did. They were paid for it. I was 
the guest of France, but I did not pay for 
this horror. 

FTERAa Solitary breakfast, I went out. 

Has it not all been described? No, 
not atall. It has been written up endlessly; 
but no one can describe that abomination 
of desolation made in twenty-four hours 
a year before, when the Commanding Offi- 
cer ordered all the inhabitants to leave 
Verdun and take nothing with them, say- 
ing, on the printed orders still on the 
walls, ‘‘Any one found looting will be 
shot at once.’’ The silence added to the 
horror. Everything told its tale. On the 
walls were what I first thought mud 
splashes, but I found they were shell 
spatters made by the shells exploding 
down the streets, tearing shallow gashes 


[1917 ] 








3 oe TES z Ree ee ee e . aes i 


SCHNEIDER’S GUN FACTORY AT CREUSOT - IT WAS HERE THAT THE MOST IMPORTANT FRENCH 
MUNITION FACTORY WAS LOCATED - I MADE THIS PRINT AND OTHERS IN MY WONDER OF 
WORK SERIES WITH NO IDEA OF THE COMING WAR BUT TO SHOW THE WONDER OF MODERN 


WORK THOUGH LIKE KRUPPS THIS WAS ALWAYS A GUN FACTORY + ETCHING MADE IN IQII 





toa 


all across the fronts of houses. It was as 
silent as Pompeii and just like it, only 
reality, not history. Here was a broken 
pile of brick and iron, you could not 
tell what it had been; next, a house not 
touched at all, in the living room chairs 
about, books on the tables, a stereoscope, 
wax flowers, photographs on the walls, 
the windows wide open; next a café, its 
front shot away, inside the little tables 
with match boxes, and the zinc with 
bottles and glasses and the account book 
on it, and the liquors on shelves behind 
the empty chair, at the high desk the pen 
and ink, and proclamations of 1916 on 
the wall. There was a hat factory, the 
front and roof gone, all the floors fallen 
forward at an angle, and from the garret 
to the cellar an avalanche of hats. And 
by the river, the lovely mass of balconied 
old houses was a mess of formless rubbish 
filling the river, and just below, the forti- 
fied gate with the poplars by it, stood un- 
touched, reflected in the quiet water. And 
not a soul about—but from beyond the 
hills came the endless boom and roar. I 
tried to draw, but as I sat there a pillar of 
mud dragged itself, a rifle clattering be- 
hind, toward me through the gate, and 
said, ‘‘O God, where can I get a place to 
sleep?’’—a man back after three weeks in 
the trenches, and they came in, sent back, 
done for, all the time. That ended that 
drawing and as later I tried to doa ruined 
Renaissance house, ping came a bit of 
shrapnel beside me from a bursting shell 
before I heard it. But it did delight the 
poilus, safe in a cellar, to see me drop my 
traps and fall into their midst. How they 
roared. Had I been killed, I suppose they 
would have laughed louder. I wandered 
on to the ruined cathedral, the tower 
shattered, the Bishop’s palace a wreck, 
near by a great crater as big as a house. 
Inside, amid overturned chairs and con- 


CHAPTER XXXIX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


fessionals on their faces in the transept, — 
the end of it shot away, was the thing 
you always heard of: the Christ hanging 
by one arm to the cross against a glitter- 
ing white wall on which the sun fell 
through the ruined roof. I started draw- 
ing—boom—the drawing did not look 
well—boom—lI tore it up and started an- 
other—boom—I stopped—boom—I tore 
that up—boom—draw—boom—no one 
with any nerves could draw—boom—and 
if you had not any nerves and did draw— 
boom—you could not render the horror, 
the tragedy—boom. I did not visit hos- 
pitals or first-aid stations; I saw too much 
without. No one who was out there, who 
was at the Front anywhere, did anything 
that gave any idea of the War. You had to 
see it, hear it, smell it, and half those 
who were in it did not—boom. I came 
back to the Citadel—boom—and was 
told that one of the booms was a shell 
which had fallen near the swimming pool 
and the regiment in it did not wait for 
their clothes. 
ap HE next morning, for I did not die in 
the night, I was not allowed to go 
out, for, from seven to eight, there was a 
polite interchange of 75’s and German 
equivalents over the town. And while 
this was on, something might happen, 
something might hit you. But you would 
never know. The shell that is for you, 
you will never hear; the one you do hear 
went by long ago. That was what the 
officers of Artillery told me. A few days 
later, in Paris, I heard that my Major of 
Artillery who had never left and said he 
would not leave till it was over, did not 
leave, for one day he was walking down 
the street and his shell hit him. ‘‘We 
found a big hole,’’ they told me, ‘‘but 
not even one of his buttons.’’ Paul Re- 
nouard was there too, had been there for 
weeks; he was going to do great things, 


[1917] 





AT THE FRONT IN FRANCE -: THE WRECK OF THE LAND 


but I never have seen or heard of them 
to this day. He did give me a perfect 
description of the ground around Mort 
Homme—"'a lunar landscape.’ I told a 
brainy American descriptive writer to use 
it, but he could not understand. Why 
should he? Yet he had been to the Front, 
though he could not get to Verdun. They 
would not let me go to Mort Homme; it 
was being shelled all the time. A week 
was all I wanted. I could have stayed, 
but I did not want to. I did not do a 
stroke of work that was worth a cent. I 
could not. Down again in the rain in an 
artillery wagon, five hours to go fifty 
kilometers; held up by troops and sup- 
plies and mud to Bar-le-Duc. And then 
back to Paris in a Pullman with girl wait- 
resses so bad they must have waited in 
America, but the lunch was all right 
when you got it; passing fresh regiments 
of misery up to their knees in mud or 
walking on the ties or loaded in box cars, 
their officers in comfort. Why do the men 
stand it? Why does the world stand war? 
At Paris, in the Gare-de-l’Est, the floors, 
cold and wet, were covered with men 
back on leave, in their first sleep for 
months, when they knew they could sleep 
in safety. But soon the Big Bertha stopped 
that. As I came out of the station that 
June day, the first American officer came 
into it on his way to Verdun, a proof that 
we were now in the War, and as over the 
poor lousy wretches inside and outside 
thisspick-and-spantailor’s advertisement 
picked his way so as not to dirty his boots 
that would not stand it, or strain his poc- 
kets that would not hold anything, the 
French soldiers woke up and stood up, one 
by one, or they were shaken up; and those 
wholived inthe provincesshotintotrains, 
those who lived in Paris dragged them- 
selves to their homes, the officers went to 
the nearest café and I went to the hotel. 


354 


A Day or two after, I was invited to go 
on what was knownasa Cook’s tour. 
There was a spick-and-span French In- 
telligence Officer; there was Tue Datty 
TELEGRAPH, [HE LONDON Grapuic,anAm- 
erican Syndicate, a Dutch bore, and me. 
And we all met at the Gare-de-l’Est and 
were given tickets to Compi¢gne. What a 
lot of information we got from the intel- 
ligence officer on the way out. And after 
a good lunch as good as ever at the little 
hotel in the town which had not been 
harmed by the Germans, we started in 
two big cars to the Front—it was there, 
we found it. We went through Ham in 
ruins, the bridge destroyed, to Noyon, 
which then had not been touched scarcely 
though later, in the last advance, it was 
knocked to pieces, and to Chauny, with 
the front off the Hétel de Ville, the town 
half destroyed and half perfect. It was 
round here that I saw house roofs un- 
harmed, sitting flat on the ground, the 
houses completely shot away from under 
them; and villages wrecked by shell fire 
which left ruins; and villages wiped out 
by dynamite which left rubbish, and 
barbed wire, and stinking craters, and 
smashed shrines, and the stumps of trees, 
and burnt mills, and poppies, poppies, 
poppies, and nota soul, nota living thing, 
where three years before had been the 
gayest of French gayety; and gaping cem- 
eteries with unearthed skeletons and open 
graves; and German murals on school- 
houses done by really good Boche artists; 
and stinks and horrors. The General at 
Noyon—I have heard it was Foch—who 
invited me to stay with him, when Iasked 
if I could go to and draw the villages, 
said, ‘Certainly, but they are ten or more 
kilometers out in the desert. It will give 
me the greatest pleasure to send you ina 
car in the morning, and, if possible and I 
remember, to send for youin the evening.’ 


[1917] 


Ai Teg 


“But, my General,’’ said I, ‘‘if you for- 
get and if some of your patrols do not 
know I am the guest of France, is it not 
possible they might take a shot at me?”’ 
“My dear Sir, it is extremely possible.”’ 
“My dear General, then I do not think it 
will be possible for me to accept your 
flattering invitation.’’ ‘‘Sir,’’ said the 
General, “‘I perceive you are a man of in- 
telligence.’’ Then leaving here, we ran 
into a caravan of French Academicians 
out on a tour of inspection. All useless 
mouths were taken to the Front. We 
steered by map, for all the signboards 
were gone and the people were gone, to- 
ward St. Quentin, by the road to Péronne, 
when we could find it; and the way was 
marked by sausage balloons, French over 
us, German beyond. On we went through 
the stink and mud, toward the Front 
trenches, cyclists tearing back and cars 
with orderlies, I suppose, though that 
may not be their name; and then sentries 
or pickets demanded our passes, and fin- 
ally, behind a big bank, we stopped. 
Now, we were at the Front. There were 
trenches and dug-outs, five or six men ina 
hole not big enough for one—and I had 
complained of my cubicle at Verdun— 
and a Captain, more like Don Quixote 
than Cervantes ever imagined him, and a 
drugstore underground. We walked up 
the unharmed road toward a waving 
paper screen, and when we got to the 
edge of the field where it was, we were 
told to be quiet and get down on our tum- 
mies and crawl. We did, more or less, and 
we looked through a hole in the paper 
camouflage of grape leaves, and saw the 
spire of the Cathedral at St. Quentin, and 
at the same time the Germans saw us and 
sent a shell a hundred yards or so away, 
and there was a mass of earth in the air, 
and then black smoke, and last a bang. 
“Get out,’’ said the officer, and he started. 


CHAPTER XXXIX - THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


““Hurry,’’ said he, as another came, run- 
ning ahead of us. ‘‘Run like hell,’’ he 
yelled, as one went over our heads. An 
ambulance man picked up and brought us 
a bit of shrapnel which was hot, gave it 
to us, and we piled in the cars and they 
piled back. I suppose it was all part of 
the tour, for a week or so later I saw a 
photograph of Pershing who had just 
arrived, looking through the same hole 
at St. Quentin. It was so labeled and I 
do not doubt three shells were fired near 
him. And all the while the French and 
German sausages swayed about and did 
nothing. By more destroyed villages, 
through a wood which had been a camp, 
and then a battle ground, and near here 
an unmoved peasant, just as before the 
War, working in his field. We got back to 
a good dinner in the good hotel and there 
were the Academicians and hotel pension- 
naires just as before the War too; they do 
arrange these things well in France. And 
yet it was War; a few kilometers away 
men were dying for their country, while 
we dined luxuriously, only there was no 
milk or butter. But it was all arranged; 
we were spectators at the show; and we 
“guests of France’’ paid our hotel bills 
and went back to Paris, stuffed by the offi- 
cer with piles of information as to what 
we had seen. How I hated it all, hated 
the War. All War. 

was in time for the glorious Fourth and 
I the Parade of the glorious American 
Army sent up to Paris to show itself. 
First, down the Rue de Rivoli on the hot 
bright morning, came from the Invalides 
Station a regiment of poilus in heavy 
marching order, overcoats and knapsacks 
and long guns with long bayonets fixed; 
next, I believe, Pershing—but I could not 
see him—surrounded witha herd of buck- 
ing bronchos going sidewise and back- 
wise, and followed by a jazz band. The 


[1917 | 


AT THE FRONT IN FRANCE - THE DOUGHBOYS COME 


French had played ‘‘The Star-Spangled 
Banner.’’ Then the Doughboys, coatless, 
knapsackless, bayonetless, protected by a 
noisy plane low down. ‘‘Ils sont des bons 
gars mais ils ne sont pas des soldats,’’ was 
one comment I heard. Later, in Judea—I 
mean New York—I found that this com- 
ment had reached home, and when the 
first American film was shown, the ‘‘slo- 
gan’’ on the screen said: “‘American ma- 
rines descending the Champs-Elysées on 
the Fourth of July on their way to Lafay- 
ette’s tomb,”’ and they had coats on and 
knapsacks, and carried bayonets, and the 
Champs-Elysées had car tracks on it, and 
no Arc de Triomphe at the end. And it 
was characteristic of some other Ameri- 
canand Allied films. 

STAYED On in Paris for a week, after tak- 
I ing a ticket for New York by the French 
line, wandering aimlessly about. I looked 
up one or two people, but they were as 
despairing as I, fearing any moment they 
must leave their homes. I dined with them 
once or twice and had to rush to catch my 
last bus at nine. They took me to the cin- 









c otis siete 


FACSIMILE OF THE 


na. 


PER 





o.03 


ema to see the film of the Italian Front, 
but at the most exciting episode they had 
to run to catch their last bus. And every- 
thing was like this. I was told I should 
offer my services to Pershing, no Ameri- 
can artists had then been appointed to 
work at the Front. I went to the Hotel 
Crillon with some such idea, I met him 
coming out, did not speak to him, and he 
drove off through a cheering crowd fol-. 
lowed by his staff. I had seen all I could 
stand of War—his business, my abomina- 
tion. He was full of the lust for fighting, 
I loathed it. I saw him again when, with 
Joffre, he was givena lunchat the military 
club and came out on the balcony waving 
his hand to another cheering crowd. I 
shuddered as he smiled, and I walked over 
to the Louvre—half the things removed 
or covered with sand bags, and only part 
of the building open—the Luxembourg 
shut. At length the week, the endless 
week, passed, I hardly know how. The 
day for leaving came. I went to the sta- 
tion hours before the train left, carried my 
traps to the carriage, and at last it started. 


CHAPTER XL: THE RETURN IN WAR TIMES: ON THE 
STEAMER » WHAT I DID AND THOUGHT AS I CAME HOME 





THE SINEWS OF WAR : LITHOGRAPH USED AS A LIBERTY LOAN POSTER BY THE GOVERNMENT 1917 


HAD had enough. I put my papers in 

order, left my drawings at the Mai- 

son de la Presse, and have never seen 

them since. I do not think they were 
published. I took the train to Bordeaux 
—eighteen hours of foodless, sweltering 
misery, locked up in a waterless compart- 
ment jammed full of invalided soldiers, 
escaping Parisians and expatriated Amer- 
icans, and Swiss, as the German spies 
called themselves—and the steamer to 
NewYork. Even that was quaint.We were 
locked on board the ship for another 
cighteen hours, while Boche prisoners 
walked freely about loading and unload- 
ing vessels in the harbor, steamed down 





si oa 


the river, dropped anchor, and, when we 
started, fired off guns. We lost in an hour 
our torpedo destroyers which started with 
us, and then we had a drill and were told 
when the whistle blew three times we 
were to put on our life preservers, come 
on deck, and get in our numbered lifeboat. 
We came on deck all right, but not a pas- 
senger that I saw had a life preserver on, 
because we did not know how to put 
them on; and we never got in a boat and 
we never had another drill. And again we 
were told that when the whistle blew 
three times, we were to do the same. That 
happened at dinner some days later, and 
no one, from the Captain down, waited 


[1917 } 








JOSEPH PENNELL 1917 * FROM THE PAINTING BY WAYMAN ADAMS SHORTLY AFTER I RETURNED 


356 


for their life preservers. All rushed to see 
what was up, and at last it leaked out 
that they were blowing the whistle to see 
if it would blow. It did. Another time 
the whistle blew. Out of the sunset came 
clouds of smoke; then there rose up over 
the horizon ships upon ships—the Amer- 
ican fleet?>—No, Germans?—and the ships 
covered the waters; but they were trans- 
ports, many, many of them, and the face 
of the deep was lined with them, and 
around and about them were British war- 
ships. We steamed right through them in 
the night silently and they sank out of 
sight behind us—the sinews of war. An- 
other day a man burst into the smoking 
room—‘The German fleet is right onus!" 


CHAPTER XL- THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Out we piled. The sea was gray and the 
sky was gray, and nothing to be seen. 
Then the clouds opened, and the sun, low 
down, lit the waters, and there were 
more ships black against the fiery sunset. 
Such is the value of camouflage. I did not 
make a sketch, or read a book, or make a 
note. I could do nothing but think—and 
my thoughts were sad thoughts—my life, 
I was sure was ended. And all was varied 
by champagne dinners and the invariable 
concert. That was War, the way War is 
carried on, but the way some of the war- 
riors carried on was worse. As for me, I 
sat about half dazed—I had had my sight 
of War and felt and knew the wreck and 
ruin of War, the wreck of my life and my 





THE PROW * LITHOGRAPH MADE ON MY RETURN AT THE NEW YORK SHIP BUILDING YARD I917 


[1917] 


THE RETURN IN WAR TIMES : I FAIL 


home—and that has never left me since, 
nor millions of others over there who 
went through it and will never recover 
from it, for the memory of it is always 
with them. 

HE War was a show for all the Allies 

except the Belgians, the French and 
the Italians. But the world is ruined; for 
those who were in it, though scarce any 
here know it, it was the beginning of the 
end of all. Remember Babylon, Egypt, 
Greece, Rome. We do not remember, we 
do not think, we do not know. But there 
are those now living who will see. What 
drawings I made I left, as I said, with the 
French Government in Paris. I thought 
little of them. I suppose they thought less. 


ST 





ipa 


ITadmit lama failure as a war artist—a re- 
corder of War at the Front, for I loathed 
what I saw so much that I could do noth- 
ing, and I say again, after seeing the war 
drawings and reading some of the war 
writings of all nations, no one gave in art 
or literature any idea of the War. No one 
could—no one will. It would stop war. 
And had any one really drawn it, the cen- 
sor would have suppressed the artist and 
seized his work. No author described the 
War; he would not have been allowed to 
while it was on, and he could not have 
done so, anyway. No one did, no one 
will. But I can never forget what I saw 
and suffered, and I suffer still when I see 
the old world jazzing through its ruins. 


THEWORLD I LOVED FAR FROM WAR: THE GAR 
DEN OF THEGENERALIFE:RUINED TOO BY WAR 


CHAPTER XLI: THE END OF MY ADVENTURES AS AN 
ILLUSTRATOR AND THE END OF AMERICAN ILLUSTRATION 


HAIL AMERICA * MEZZOTINT 1908 - MADE WHEN WE LIVED IN LIBERTY AND ENJOYED FREEDOM 


HESE are some of my adventures 

but by no means all—adventures 

till we came home during the War 

and my life in Europe ended. But 
there are many other sides to my life which 
I have not, or scarcely, touched on—my 
art work outside illustration, my life with 
artists and literary people, our life in Lon- 
don, my sporting life, when I thought I 
could make sport a power in art, through 
motoring, cycling—using cycling and mo- 
toring as a means of getting to the places 
I was to illustrate, and then getting about 
in them. But I failed in this, because I 
am not a mechanical genius. I have no 
taste for mechanics, and to manage with- 
out that one must have a mechanic and a 
driver, and I prefer the lonesomeness of a 
pullman to the company of a chauffeur. 
I have said little of my art criticism, which 
had something to do with changing Brit- 
ish criticism; nor of my official connec- 





tion with International Exhibitions, which 
extended from 1900 in Paris to 1915 in 
San Francisco, and covered all of them 
during that period; nor of my teaching, 
trying to make art teaching practical; nor 
of running exhibitions and art societies 
and helping artists; nor of my etchings 
and lithographs; nor of my correspond- 
ence or other peoples’ letters to me—what 
are left of them. There are many other 
subjects I might have gone into and if the 
world, or that tiny part of it which is 
interested in me and my work, or from 
this book has heard of us both, wishes to 
hear more of me and about us, I can tell 
them the tale. And, as I end this chapter, 
American illustration ends too. THE Czn- 
TurRy ceased to print illustrations, that is 
the work of distinguished artists, repro- 
duced by eminent engravers, and printed 
by master craftsmen, a short while ago. 
And with the issue for September this year 


[1917-1925 } 











7 aa ee ee es ee, 


MADE IN 1918 WHEN I WAS ASSOCIATE 


CHAIRMAN OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION 


OBERHARDT - 


DRAWING BY W. 


JOSEPH PENNELL 




















THE END OF MY ADVENTURES AS AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Harper's gaveupthetask of putting pearls 
before Americans, and the triumph of the 
comics is complete, and so is the dry rot of 
this country, which once was my United 
States, in the art of illustration. 
A ND now I am home, but not in my 
own home, not in the land I left and 
knew and loved and dreamed of coming 
home to. Lam still init, though Iam not 
allowed to do anything for it. I have been 
given everything the country gives. I am 
here and shall stay here till the end, which 
may come any day, any hour. I would not 
stay aminute if I could not sit with E. and 
lookout of our windows on the most beau- 
tiful thing left in the world, and that is 





I. AND E. R. PENNELL AT THEIR BROOKLYN WINDOW : 


361 


going too, ruined by fools, business men 
to puff themselves and their shops, to 
make money, their god, their aim, their 
idol, which is no good to them when 
they have got it and so they give it away, 
most of them, to advertise themselves.We 
are of it, but not in it, the world. But we 
see it, see 1t passing, for in a little while 
it will beno more and we shall be no more, 
the world we loved and laid up treasures 
in—it is gone and they are gone. The view 
from our windows is the last of our world, 
for all else has gone—we have seen it go 
—and we are going and it is going. But 
it is good to have lived, to have adven- 
tured, to have known, and to remember. 


—¥ 





PAINTED BY MR. WAYMAN ADAMS 


THEY END 








Zaj 


wm 
IZnom at 14 Rucluhoun Bb. Shand Sal Fimahod! 


BOOKS ILLUSTRATED AND WRITTEN BY JOSEPH PENNELL 


SY 





Fe oY 
S 


cay 






a oh 


sci 


THE BRIDGE AT MOSTAR * PEN DRAWING FOR IN DALMATIA BY HARRIET WATERS PRESTON 


Walt Whitman 

The Sylvan City 

The Creoles of Louisiana 

A Canterbury Pilgrimage 
Two Pilgrims’ Progress 

Our Sentimental Journey 
Tuscan Cities 

Old Chelsea 

The Plantin Museum 

Cycling, the Badminton Library 
English Cathedrals 

The Sadéne, A Summer Voyage 
The Stream of Pleasure 

Our Journey to the Hebrides 
French Cathedrals 

Aquitaine 

The Jew at Home 

The Castle Line 

Play in Provence 


To Gypsyland 

Makers of Rome 

Highways and Byways Series: Cornwall 
and Devon, Norfolk and Essex, North 
Wales, Yorkshire, Lake Country. 

The Alhambra 

The Raiders’ Country 

The Norfolk Broads 

A Little Tour in France 

Italian Hours 

English Hours 

Castilian Days 

Italian Journies 

Charing Cross to Saint Paul’s 

Over the Alps ona Bicycle 

Our Philadelphia 

The Road in Tuscany 

Gleanings from Venetian History 
London Stock Exchange 


364 


City Series: London(z), New York, Venice, 
San Francisco 

The New New York 

Our House 

Pictures of the Wonder of Work: The Pan- 
ama Canal, In the Land of Temples, War 
Work in England, War Work in America, 
Making a Liberty Loan Poster. 

Nights 

London 

Books WRITTEN By JOSEPH PENNELL 

Pen Drawing and Pen Draughtsmen 

The Illustration of Books 

The Graphic Arts 


tee, 


UNDER THE BRIDGES CHICAGO + THIS SUBJECT IS DESTROYED 





BOOKS ILLUSTRATED AND WRITTEN BY JOSEPH PENNELL 


Charles Keene 

Introduction to Pablo de Segovia by 
Vierge 

Etchers and Etching 

In COLLABORATION WITH Mrs. PENNELL 
A Canterbury Pilgrimage 

Our Sentimental Journey 

Two Pilgrims’ Progress 

Stream of Pleasure 

Journey to the Hebrides 

Play in Provence 

Lithographers and Lithography 

Life of Whistler 

The Whistler Journal 





- CHARCOAL DRAWING 1908 


NY 


ig 
ii 





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}) 

~ ro, J 
wee 
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INDEX 





GYPSIES : PEN SKETCH MADE IN TRANSYLVANIA FOR TO GYPSYLAND 1891 + THE CENTURY CO. 


Assey, E. A., artist, seen for first time 
by Pennell 34; international reputation 
of, 57; mentioned, 65; English draw- 
ings by, awaited with expectation, 77; 
Pennell’s first meeting with, 107; mem- 
ory method of, 139; tea party at his 
house, 150; at Pennell’s rooms in Lon- 
don, 169; sums spent by, in perfecting 
his pictures, 172; Pennell led astray by, 
179; member of Reform Club, 264; his 
painting of King Edward’s coronation, 
304. 

Avevput Terrace, London home of Jos. 
Pennell, 162-168. 

Axst, drawings made by Pennell at, 204. 

ALEXANDER, JOHN, painter, 37. 

American Army, arrival of, in Paris, 
352, 353- 

Amiens, drawings made by Pennell at, 
206. 

Ansuutz, T., Professor in Pennsylvania 
Academy of Fine Arts, 50. 

Arcu Street Mretinc Housz, Philadel- 
phia, 11. 

ARLES, 204, 206. 

Art, lack of appreciation of, in America, 
23; prizes the curse of American, 26; 


how it should be studied, 36, 37; is il- 
lustration, 57, 58; means hard work, 
102; of today, 102; encouragement of, 
as now practiced, is a curse, 114; every- 
where hated or feared, 119; attitude of 
artists in regard to perfection in, 170, 
172; American, in blind alley, 238; crit- 
ics of, 260. 

Art JourNAL, THE, 107. 

Art ScHoots, 36, 37, 100, 102. 

Art Workers’ GuILp, 202. 

Artuur, Cuester A., President, 82. 

Assisi, 126. 

Avicnon, arrested in, 313. 


Bacon, Joun, A. R. A., paints King 
George’s coronation, 302, 304. 

BaGni pi Lucca, 130. 

BarBER-SURGEONS’ CoMPANY, 192. 

BarGa, 107, 130-134. 

Bar-LE-Duc, 346, 347. 

Barnum, P. T., show man, 260. 

Barriz, Sir James M., author, 162, 166. 
264, 

Barrow-1n-Furness, the Vickers-Max- 
im factory at, 336. 

Bartiett, Paut W., sculptor, 338. 


Barton, Breuwag, 5. 

Barton, MarTHA, 5. 

Barton, Mary, 5. 

Barton Street, London, 168. 

BasuxirtszFr, Marie, artist, libel action 
threatened by family of, 160. 

BayREvTH, 265. 

BrarDsLey, AUBREY, 147, 168, 204, 210, 
Zig, 204; 205, 206, Diy eo 2 SOs 
255. 

Beauvais, drawings made by Pennell at, 
206. 

Braux, Cecixia, Miss, artist, 65, 69. 

BrprorD Puacez, No. 36, 159. 

Brersoum, Max, genius, 214. 

BERDITCHEV, 222; Pennell arrested and 
detained in, 230-235; birthplace of Jo- 
seph Conrad, 236; people of, angered 
at Pennell, 236. 

Brriin, GERMANY, 325-326. 

Besant, Sir WatteER, author, 106. 

Bracr, CommENnDATOoRE, librarian of Lau- 
rentian Library, 279. 

Brg, as English lesson book, 21. 

BicyctinGc Wor tp, THE, 59. 

BiceLow, Pouttney, author, 235, 261. 

Bircu, Recinacp B., illustrator, 66. 


366 


BispHaM, Davin, musician, 265. 

Buon, Ropert, artist, 46, 58. 

Bocxu1n, ARNOLD, artist, III, 117. 

Botsuevist Jews, 236. 

Bong, Muirueap, etcher, 336, 338. 

Boreter, Coronet ALEXANDER, article 
of, in Taz Century secured by Pennell, 
81, 90. 

BousseMroum, the, 183, 184-186. 

Brennan, AxrreD, illustrator, 46,57; 84; 
86. 

Bripcer, Sir Freprrick, musical con- 
ductor, 305. 

Bropy, Pennell arrested at, while draw- 
ing, 224, 227. 

Brown, Frep, artist, 240. 

Brown, Joun, raid of, 81. 

Bucx, Dr. R. M., 74, 182. 

BucxincHaM Street, London, 162, 168. 

Buet, C. C., editor of Taz Century, 105. 

Bunce, W. Gepnry, artist, 140,143,282, 
286. 

Burne-Jones, Six Epwarb, painter, 250. 

Burns, Cuarzzs M., architect, professor 
of drawing and design at the Pennsy]- 
vania School of Industrial Art, 43; 47, 
285. 

Burns, Joun, English political leader, 
162, 166; 294, 296; 309; 330. 

Burtrerrty, Tue, art journal, 214. 


Caste, G. W., in New Orleans, 85, 89; 
93-99- 

Carn, drawings made by Pennell at, 204. 

Catnoun, Henry, office, Pennell’s first 
drawing published in Scripner’s, 61, 
62, 64. 

Camac Srreet, Philadelphia, and its 
clubs, 69, 70. 

Cantersury, England, 181. 

Cantersury Pircrmace, A, 157, 172; 
175, 176. 

Carpentrrs Company, London Guild, 
192. 

CarRARA, 276. 

CarisBaD, Jews at, 223. 

CartwricGut, Juxia, author, 140. 

Casanova y Esroracu, G. J., artist, 
46, 57. 

CasTELNOVO DI GARFAGNANA, 276. 

Cast1L1aNn Days, by John Hay, 210. 

CatHeprats, English, Pennell’s ‘draw- 
ings of, 170-181; French, Pennell's 
drawings of, 203-206; of Italy, Spain, 
Germany, Belgium, Pennell’s drawings 
of, 210; fate of Pennell’s drawings of, 
para 

Century, Tue, Pennell's first commis- 
sion for, 61, 62; commissions Pennell 
to illustrate article on Dunker settle- 
ment at Ephrata, 65, 66; commissions 
Pennell to illustrate article by Leland 
on Art School and Art Club, 71; 
article‘‘ Visiting the Gypsies” ,72;com- 


THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


missions Pennell to do article on pic- 
tures in Corcoran Art Gallery, 77; com- 
missions Pennell to illustrate cavern at 
Luray, 78; article by Colonel Boteler 
in, secured by Pennell, 81; War Series 
of, 81, 90, 105; commissions Pennell to 
go to New Orleans, 84-85, 89; articles 
secured for, by Pennell, 90; old Phila- 
delphia etchings in, 102; Edinburgh 
illustrations in, 106, 147, 150; Dalma- 
tian illustrations in, 129; article on St. 
Bartholomew's in, 191; James's article 
on Faust in,260, 261; New York draw- 
ingsissued in, without text, 316; prints 
Pennell’s drawings of Panama Canal, 
319; has ceased to print artist illustra- 
tions, 358. 

Cuatons, 186, 314. 

Cuartres, drawings made by Pennell at, 
204. 

CHAUNY, 351. 

Cricuester, CHaruzs F., treasurer Cen- 
tury Company, proposed this book, 
preface. 

Curoniciz, Darry, see Darty CHRONICLE. 

Crry Dinners, London, 196-202. 

CracHorn, James L., president of the 
Pennsylvania Academy, his Whistlers, 
34, 74; First Day afternoons with, 238. 

Crarxe, Str Epwarp, barrister, Lon- 
don, 250. 

Cxorts Farr, London, 192. 

Coat Mines, formerly and now, 44. 

Coz, Caprain, sporting editor, Lonpon 
Star, 160. 

Corz, Timotuy, wood engraver, 58, 
210. 

Cotzectinc, American system of, 214. 

Corvin, Str Srpney, keeper of prints, 
British Museum, 147, 183. 

ConraD, Joszpu, birthplace of, 236. 

ConsTaBLE, JOHN, painter, 175. 

Cooper, Corin CAMPBELL, painter, makes 
acquaintance of Pennell, 43. 

Cooprr, J. F., scheme for illustrating 
scenes of his novels, 60. 

Coorrr, Samugt, of Taz GERMANTOWN 
Soctau, 43. 

Corz Brortuers, the, 13, 14, 16-18, 33. 

Corcoran Art Gatiery, at Washing- 
ton, 77, 82, 84. 

Craic, Gorpon, artist, 160. 

CraNnz, STEPHEN, author, the Rep Bapcgz 
or CouRAGE, 105. 

Crane, WatrTer, craftsman, 160, 168; 
makes drawings for Dairy CHRONICLE, 
250. 

Crawrorp, Marton, author, 268; his 
innocence of the Fine Arts, 268; his 
GLEANINGS FROM VENETIAN History, 
279; his lack of knowledge of Italy and 
the Italians, 280; his gondolier, 282; 
with Pennell in Venice, 280-285. 

CREOLES, 93-94. 


Critics, att, 260. 
Cycuine, 58, 59, 153-158, 172, 176, 265; 
271-278, 314, 316. 


Dairy Curoniciz, Tue, London, under 
editorship of H. W. Massingham, 247; 
scene connected with King Edward's 
funeral done by Pennell for, 290, 292, 
294, 296; King George’s coronation 
done by Pennell for, 300, 303, 310. 

Dairy Grapuic, Tue, of London, birth 
of, 250. 

Daimty Grapuic, Tur, of New York, 
Pennell tries to get on, 37, 58. 

Dairy Mat, Tue, London, 215, 290. 

Dairy News, Tue, London, leader on 
Pennell in, 175, 176. 

DatmattA, visited by Pennell, 129. 

Daubert, AtpHonsz, his Lerrres p—E Mon 
Moutin and TarTarin DE Tarascon, 
204. 

Davis, JEFFERSON, 90, 99. 

Davray, Henry, 329, 340, 345. 

Day IN THE Mas, afticle in ScrIBNER’s 
MaGazine, 60-62. 

De Morcan, Mrs. Witt1am (Evetyn 
PickERING), 126. 

Devits or Notre Damg, 240, 242. 

De Vinne, Tueopore L., article on 
Plantin Museum at Antwerp, 183, 247. 

Diat, Tue, English Art Journal, 214. 

Dispensary, Philadelphia, 9. 

Doueuas, Genzrat Henry T., 105. 

DowninctTown, Visit tO, 37. 

Drake, A. W., art editor of ScripNER’s 
and Taz Century, accepts Pennell’s 
first drawings, 61, 62; 65; article on 
Luray Cavern, 78, 80, 82, 86, 89; will be 
remembered, 101; 119. 

Drawinc FroM Memory, 139, 311,312. 

Duruam, England, 179. 

Duveneck, FRANK, 110, 114, 118; at 
Venice, 140, 282; 143, 144. 


Eaxins, THomas, professor at the Penn- 
sylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 50, 52. 

East, Srr AFrep, painter, 80. 

Eprnsure3, illustrations, 106, 147, 150; 
visited by Pennell, 150. 

Epwarp VII, death and funeral, 290- 
299. 

Ecan, Maurice Francis, ambassador to 
Denmark, writer of ““A Day in the 
Mash’’, 62. 

‘‘ELtzanor’s Crosszs,”” article on, by T. 
A. Janvier, 68. 

Enoutsa CatHeprats, Pennell’s draw- 
ings of, 170-181. 

Encusx IntustratED MaGazinz, THE, 
129. 

ENGRAVING, 58, 85. 

Ercuinc Cuuss, 74, 77- 

Evans, ExizaBetTH, 5, 6, II. 

Evans, Hanna, 5, 6. 


eS Ie T 


INDEX 


FarnuaM, ENGLAND, aeroplane factory 
at. 331, 332. 

Ferris, Gzromg, artist, son of Stephen, 
46; at the Pennsylvania Academy of 
Fine Arts, 50. 

Ferris, STEPHEN, aftist, influence on 
Pennell, 46. 

Fiona McLzop, see SHarp, WiILL1AM 

FisumMoncers, the, London Guild, 192. 

Frorence, Pennell at, 107-119, 125; The 
Trattoria, 110-113, 117, 118; 276. 

Foc, GENERAL, 351, 352. 

Footr, Mary Hattocx, illustrator, 21, 
39, 58. 

Forp, Henry, multi-millionaire, his 
eagle boats, 311-312. 

Forp, SHERIDAN, writer, and Whistler, 
241. 

Fortuny, Mariano, painter and etcher, 
46, 57- 

France, 206; 236; in war time, 341. 

Fraser, W. Lewis, assistant art editor of 
Tuer Century, 62. 

Freperic, Haroxp, novelist, 105; 222; 
235; 280. 

Frepericxspurc, Union and Confeder- 
ate Reunion at, 105. 

Frencn Catueprats, Pennell’s draw- 
ings of, 203-206. 

Frenca GovERNMENT, asks for Pennell’s 
drawings of French Cathedrals, 212. 

Frrenps, the Philadelphia, 5,21;customs 
of, 11, 12, 20; meetings of, 11, 21, 22; 
meeting houses of, 11, 12, 21; forms of 
art approved by, 16; 89. 

Frost, A.B., illustrator, 50, 58; 69. 

Furze, C, W., painter, 216,217. 


Gatswortsy, Jon, author, at Adelphi 
Terrace, 162, 264. 

GarFigLp, James A., president, assassi- 
nation of, 81. 

Gzorce V, coronation of, 300-310. 

Germ, Tue, art journal, 214. 

GERMANTOWN Friznbs’ Szxect ScHoou 
19-34. 

Germany, just before the World War, 
324-326. 

Giver, R. W., editor of Taz Century, 
voyage, 183, 184; letter from, offering 
commission for French Cathedrals to 
Pennell, 203. 

GitxoT, official French painter at King 
George’s coronation, 302, 304. 

Grrvters’ Company, the, 192-196. 

Grzason, Miss, secretary to A.W. Drake, 
62, 89. 

GuoucrsTER, ENGLAND, 181. 

Gotpsmirtus, the, London Guild, 192. 

Goopyzar, W. H., lecturer at German- 
town Friends’ Select School, 24; his 
theories, 24. 

Gossz, Sir Epmunp, first meeting with 
Pennell, 146; at Venice and Paris with, 


146, 147; article on Fitz-William Mu- 
seum, 147; introduces Pennell to the 
Girdlers, 192. 

Gozzou1, BrNozzo, 271. 

Granp CANYON OF THE CoLorabo, Pow- 
ell’s discovery of, 82. 

Grapuic, Tue, of London, 34, 182. 

Grapuic Dairy, New York and Lon- 
don, see Datty Grapuic. 

Grapuic Arts, in America, 57. 

Greece, drawings of, 319. 

GREEKS, as artists, 312. 

Guitp Hatt, London, 196. 

Gutxps, London, drawn by Pennell, 192; 
their Halls, 192, 196; their dinners, 
192, 196; preserve character of City of 
London, 196. 

Guturig, F, Anstey, writer, 260. 

Gypsizs, article on, 72. 


Haven, Szymonr, etcher, heard by Pen- 
nell, 52, 743773 153- 

Hamerton, Puirie Gitpert, 30; his A 
Partnter’s Camp 1n THE Hicuianps and 
Tur Unknown River, 74, 183; gives 
commission to Pennell, 117, 182; with 
Pennell on the Sadne voyage, 183-190. 

Hamitton, Jonn McLurg, his portrait 
of Pennell in Pennsylvania Academy of 
Fine Arts, 36; with Pennell in London, 
168. 

Harvanp, Henry, author, at Paris, 147, 
216, 220; one of the originators of THz 
Yzttow Book, 213-215. 

Harper's Macazing, illustrated monthly, 
58; article on ELzanor’s Crosszs in, 68; 
article on music halls by Guthrie in, 260 
ceases to print artist illustrations, 36r. 

Harper’s Week ty, 58, 102. 

Harper's YouNG Propte, 68. 

HarrispurG, Pennsylvania, 78-80. 

Hartrick, A.S., artist, 168; 214; makes 
drawings for Damty Grapuic, 250. 

Hearn, Larcaprio, author, 96, 99. 

Hesrews, or real Jews, see Jews. 

Hernemann, WIL.1AM, publisher, 162, 
236. 

Hentey, W. E., editor of Taz Macazinz 
or ArT, 107; at Pennell’s rooms in Lon- 
don, 169. 

Henscuet, Cart, engraver, 250, 252. 

Hewtett, Maurice, author, with Pen- 
nell in Italy, 120, 123, 268-279. 

Hicuways AND Byways In NoRMANDY, 
210. 

Hosss, Gzorcz Tuomson, of the Penn- 
sylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 53. 

Hossy-Horsz, Tue, art journal, 214. 

Hoxmgs, Proressor W. H., of Ethnologi- 
cal Bureau, 82, 83; 106. 

Howetts, W. D., 49; the Tuscany com- 
mission, 100-102, 107, 118; not in sym- 
pathy with Pennell, 107, 108; his want 
of interest in art, 108; Florence, 110; 


367 


at Siena, 120, 123; at Lucca, Pisa, and 
Pistoia, 123, 124. 
Hunt, Horman, portrait of himself, 34. 


IntustraTED Dairy JourNa.ism, inven- 
tion of, 250, 252, 255. 

Iniustratep Lonpon News, 222, 235, 
236; scenes connected with King Ed- 
ward's death and funeral done by 
Pennell for, 290, 294-296, 298; prints, 
Pennell’s drawings of Panama Canal, 
319. 

IntusrraTeD Prriopicats, in the "gos, 
58. 

InLustRATION, AMERICAN, 57; interna- 
tional reputation made in, by Ameri- 
cans, §7;experimentation and imitation 
in, 64; standardized, 64; importance of 
the personal note in, 66; for magazines 
affords more publicity than other forms 
of art, 101; the end of American, 358. 

ILiustrations, between 1860 and 1890, 
our vital works of art, 64; of the present 
day, 64. 

IMPRESSIONISM IN ART, 175. 

Inpians, Zunis at Washington, 83, 84. 

INTERNATIONAL SociETY oF ScuLpToRs, 
PaINTERS AND GRAVERS, 169. 

Irvine, Henry, actor, his Faust, 260, 
261. 

Iraty, visited by Pennell, 107, 108, 210. 
Ives ScrEEN Process, 64. 


Jackson, Sronewatt, general, account 
of his death, 105. 

James, Henry, at Pennell’s rooms in 
London, 169; 214; first meeting with 
Pennell, 258; his letters, 258; his A 
Lirrrie Tour 1n France illustrated by 
Pennell, 260, 264, 265, 267; his article 
on Irving’s Fausr, 260, 261; his re- 
nunciation of American citizenship, 
266, 267. 

Janvier, Tuomas A., author, meeting 
with Pennell, 68; does Exzanor’s 
Crosszs with Pennell, 68. 

JAPANESE, memory method of, 139, 312. 

Jew at Home, Tue, 236. 

Jews, Russian, 222, 223; Polish, 223; 
224; at Kiev, 229; at Berditchev, 231, 
232; 236; Tue Jew at Home, 236; Bol- 
shevist, 236. 

Jounson, R. U., Associate Editor of 
Scripner’s and editor of Taz Century, 
61; his REMEMBERED YESTERDAYS, 61, 
81; attends Union and Confederate Re- 
unions, 105; at Lincoln, 181. 

Jonson Crus, 202. 


Keats, Joun, killed by critical compa- 
triots, 215; his fame, 221. 

Keen, Docror, his lectures at Pennsyl- 
vania Academy of Fine Arts, 52. 

Kemstez, Fanny, 28. 


368 


Kennan, GrorGe, author, suggests to 
Pennell a trip to Russia, 236. 

Kerrertinus Lirnocrapuic SHop, in 
Philadelphia, 319. 

Kirv, 222; the living death seen in, 227, 
228; other sights in, 228, 229; Jews at 
229. 

Kircuener, Lorn, at rehearsal for King 
George's coronation, 305. 

Kornprosst, Caprain, 184, 186, 189. 

Kropotkin, PRINCE, 236. 


La Farce, Joun, artist, 58, 114. 

Lamspin, James R., drawing master at 
the Germantown Friends’ SelectSchool, 
24; taught use of mind and memory, 24; 
his method, 24; instructs to draw from 
nature, 26; gives prize to Pennell, 26. 

Lang, Joun, publisher of Taz Yettow 
Book, 213-215. 

Lanc, ANpREw, author, 106; meeting 
with Pennell, 147; displeased with 
Pennell, 147; writer for Tue Dairy 
News, 175; leaders by, on Pennell’s 
Saéne voyage, 189. 

Laon, drawings made by Pennell at, 206. 

La Verna, 278. 

Lavery, Sir Joun, 96, 99. 

Lepcer, THe PoirapevpHia, 78. 

Lzz, Vernon, Violet Paget, articles of, 
illustrated by Pennell, 107, 125, 126, 
130, 136. 

Legps, England, in war times, 332-334. 

Lz Gaiienne, RicHarD, author, 160. 

Leicuton, Lorn, painting by, 34, 107. 

Letanp, CuHarves Goprrey, author, ar- 
ticle on Art School and Art Club, 71; 
72; article on ‘‘Visiting the Gypsies,”’ 
72; centenary of his birth, 72; leaves 
Philadelphia, 153. 

Lz Mans, drawings made by Pennell at, 
206. 

Lemon, ARTHUR, artist, 110, 118. 

Lepacs, Bastren, his “‘Joanof Arc,’ 107. 

Le Puy,drawingsmade by Pennellat,204. 

Lestiz’s WEEKLY, 58. 

Lincotn, AprawaM, president, assassi- 
nation of, 12. 

LITHOGRAPHY, 319. 

Lirrtz Girt AMONG THE OLD Masters— 
Mildred Howells, 108. 

Luoyp, Frank, managing director of 
Dairy CHRONICLE, 250. 

Lioyp-Grorcgz, Davin, 329. 

Locan Housg, Stenton, 36. 

Lonpon, Pennell's first visit to, 106; 107; 
146; 153, 157; Pennell settles in, 158- 
169; 191, 192; at the outbreak of the 
World War, 327-328. 

Lonpvon City Compantzs, drawn by Pen- 
nell, 192; 198. See also Gurxps. 

Lonpon Timgs, Tue, 176; funeral pro- 
cession of King Edward done by Pennell 
for, 290, 294, 298. 


THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Low, Witt H., artist, 183. 

Lowe tt, J. R., author, 106. 

Lucca, 123, 130, 269. 

Luneren, F. H., artist, 46, 58. 

Luray, cavern at, 78, 80, 81; reunion of 
Northern and Southern men at, 81. 


MacCott, D. S., critic curator, 168, 216, 
240. 

Macmirxan, Sir Freperick, publisher, 
162; 264; arranges for series of travel 
books, 268. 

Mapnrip, 210. 

Macazing or Art, THE, 107, 129. 

Mattows, Cuartuzs E., architect, 176; 
179; assists Pennell, 179, 180. 

Manty, T.R., artist, 60. 

Mansion Hous, London, 196, 198. 

Manrrnont, and his press, 250. 

Marne, the, arrested on, 314. 

Marticugs, 206. 

Martin, Dr. B. E., his articles on Orp 
CuEtsga, 238. 

MassincuaM, H. W., of Tue Star, 160; 
editor of London Dairy Cxronicre, 
2.473250. 

May, Put, illustrator and caricaturist, 
77; at Pennell’s rooms in London, 168; 
portrait, 168; 214; makes drawings for 
Datry Caronictz, 250. 

Mzap, Larkin S., sculptor, 110, 285. 

Mezavx, 346. 

Mezissonizr, J. L. E., artist, 179. 

Memory, value of, to the artist, 139, 
302,312. 

Menpes, Mortimer, artist, 238, 241. 

Mercier, CarDINAL, 328. 

Mestre, 316. 

Mippteton, Professor J. H., archaeolo- 
gist, 158. 

Mississtppr, a trip down the, go. 

Mircuett, J. A., founder of Lirs, 58. 

Mownroz, Kirk, editor of Harpgr’s 
Youne Pezoptz, 58. 

Monte OLrveto, 275. 

Moore, GeorGg, novelist, 168,215, 240. 

Moorz, Str Norman, Warden of St. 
Bartholomew's, 191. 

Moran, Lzon, artist, 46. 

Moran, Percy, artist, 46. 

Moran, Peter, artist, condemns work 
of Pennell, 28. 

Moran, Tuomas, artist, 82. 

Moravians, Pennell commissioned to 
illustrate article on, 66. 

Morecan, Isaac, Principal of Friends’ 
Select Boys’ School, 10, 11. 

Morais, Harrison S., 40. 

Morris, Wixt1aM, author, applied So- 
cialism to art, 64; his Socialist meet- 
ings, 159, 162; makes drawings for 
Dairy CHRONICLE, 250. 

Morrison, Artuur, author, 214. 

Mourpuy, J. F., artist, 62. 


Mussoxin1, brigand, 269. 


Nast, Tuomas, cartoonist, 77. 

NEWCASTLE-ON-T'YNE, 335, 336. 

New Orvzans, Pennell’s trip to, 85-86, 
89-100. See Casrz, Gzorce W. 

Newspapers, process of illustration in, 
invented by Pennell, 250, 252, 255; 
present-day illustrations in, 255. 

New York, first visit to, 61; view of, 61; 
drawings of, 316, 317. 

Nicuts, 157, 158. 

Norman, Sir, Henry, writes articles by 
Our Own Commissioner, 189; on staff 
of Taz Part Matt Gazerrte, 190; with 
Pennell in France, 190. 

Norts Street, Westminster, 168. 

Notre Dame, Paris,doneby Pennell, 203 
204. 


Oaxtey, Miss Vioter, paintings of, 80. 

O'Connor, T. P., editor of Tue Srar, 
160. 

Oxp Point, Virginia, 82. 

Ouma, authoress, 125. 

Our ConTINENT, 72, 84, 102. 

Our SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY, 265. 


Papua, 143. 

Pace, AMBassaDor WALTER Hinzs, 328. 

Pacer, Viouet. See Lzz, VERNON. 

Patt Matz Gazerte, Tue, 176. 

PanaMa Canal, drawings of, 319. 

Paris, visited by Pennell, 107; Notre 
Dame done by Pennell, 203, 204; in war 
time, 342-345. 

ParrisH, MaxFigtp, commercial artist, 
“predigested food,’’ 47; at Pennell’s 
studio, 65, 69. 

ParrisH, STEPHEN, painter, etcher, at 
Pennell’s studio, 65, 69; with Pennell 
in Europe, 153. 

Parsirat, performance of, 265. 

Parsons, ALFRED, painter, makes draw- 
ings for Dairy CHRONICLE, 250. 

Parsons, CHaruzs, art editor of Har- 
pEer's, Pennell's first personal encounter 
with, 68; 99; 107. 

PartripGe, Sir BERNARD, Cartoonist, 
makes drawings for Dairy Curoniciz, 
250; as actor, 266, 

Penn, Witt1AM, tradition concerning 
his statue, 6. 

Penn Cuvs, the, 72. 

PENNELL, JosepH, birth, 1; ancestors, 1- 
4; coat of arms, 2; the family name, 2; 
war memories, 4, 12; place of birth, 4; 
memories of Aunt Mary and Aunt Beu- 
lah Barton, 5; love for the Rollo books, 
5; memories of Hannah and Elizabeth 
Evans, 5; fondness for bells and churches, 
6; born with a love of beauty, 6, 36; 
memories of Lombard Street house, 6; 
enjoys the American smell, 6; protests 
destruction of Philadelphia Dispensary, 


INDEX 


9; ailments and misfortunes as a child, 
9; childish drawings, 9, 10, 14; 
dreams, 9, 10; takes lessons of his fa- 
ther, 10; goes marketing, 10; learns to 
read, 10; his first school, 10-12; at 
Copes’ office, 13-18; source of his man- 
nerism of looking down on drawing 
subject, 14; at Germantown Friends’ 
Select School, 19-34; wishes to study 
art, 20; how he learned English, 21; his 
views on education, 21, 23; studies 
French, 24; studies under Lambdin, 24- 
26; receives prize for drawing, 26; his 
views 0n prizes,26,37, 102; influenced by 
Cruikshank and Browne, 26; spends 
holidays drawing, 26; tries woodcut- 
ting, 28; studies under Joseph Ropes, 28; 
his mannerisms, 28; under W. T. Rich- 
ards, 29; sports, 29; efforts to see illus- 
trated journals, 29; car-riding experi- 
ences, 29; journals and books by which 
he was influenced, 29; draws with 
stump, 30; attends Academy exhibition, 
30; deals in chickens, 30, 33; books 
bought by, 30, 33; raises peanuts, 33; 
sketches hung in school room, 33; 
school escapade of, 33; visits the Cen- 
tennial, 34; graduates from German- 
town School, 34; boyish pranks, 35, 
36; refused admittance to Pennsyl- 
vania Academy of Fine Arts, 36; his 
theories of art study, 36, 37; visits 
Downingtown, 37; his first sale, 37; 
tries to get on THe Dairy Grapuic, 37; 
starts in business in coal company’s 
office, 38; enters Pennsylvania School 
of Industrial Art, 38; promoted in busi- 
ness, 38; resigns, 38; warned by Doctor 
James Rhoads, 39; criticism of business 
methods of Harrison S. Morris, 40; his 
first etching, 40; introduced to Colin C. 
Cooper, 43; his first published appear- 
ance, 43; work in School of Industrial 
Art, 43, 44, 47; under Charles M. Burns, 
43; love of drawing work born in, 43; 
sketching expeditions, 43, 44; his first 
etching on copper, 44; buys a bicycle, 
44; visits Ferris’s studio, 46; influence 
of Ferris on, 46; etching experiences, 
46; sketching adventure, 46; expelled 
from Industrial Art School, 47, 48; stu- 
dent at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine 
Arts, 47-54; under Eakins, 52; his first 
commission, 54; begins career as il- 
lustrator in Journal of Pennsylvania 
Historical Society, 54, 57; imitates 
technique of Rico and Fortuny, 57; 
illustrates for Harper's WeEKLy, 58; 
asked to join Lire, 58; Captain of 
Germantown Bicycle Club at meet in 
Boston, 58, 59; bicycling feats, 59; 
““A Day in the Mash,” 61, 62; New 
York the Unbelievable City to, 61; 
commissioned to draw Henry Cal- 


houn’s office, 61, 64; drawings ex- 
hibited at Salmagundi Club, 62; rents 
studio with H. R. Poore, 65; receives 
commission from Tux Century to illus- 
trate article on Dunker settlement at 
Ephrata, 65, 66; works from nature, 66; 
commissioned to do the Moravians, 66; 
meeting with T. A. Janvier, 68; first 
personal encounter with Charles Par- 
sons, 68; pranks at the studio, 68, 69; 
made member of Sketch Club, 69; com- 
missioned to illustrate article by Le- 
land, 71; taken into the Penn Club, 72; 
illustrates Tor Seven Aces or Man, 
72; illustrates ‘‘ Visiting the Gypsies,” 
72; illustrates articles for Our Conti- 
NENT, 72; his Philadelphia etchings, 
72, 74, 78, bored by Shakespeare, 74; 
made secretary of Etching Club, 74; 
secretary of International Exhibition, 
74; influence of Whistler and Haden on, 
77; makes pen-and-ink sketches from 
photographs, 77, 78; commissioned to 
illustrate article on cavern at Luray, 
78, 80, 81; visits Harrisburg, 78-80; 
secures article of Colonel Boteler for 
Tue Century, 81; makes drawing of 
engine house at Harper's Ferry, 81; 
draws Libby Prison, 81; draws Nelson 
mansion, 82; drawings at Washington, 
82-84; visits White House, 82; listens 
to Holmes’s account of Major Powell’s 
discoveries, 82, 83; competes for post, 
83; sees Zuflis at Washington, 83, 84; 
receives commission to go to New Or- 
leans with Cable, 84-86, 89; method by 
which his early drawings and etchings 
were engraved, 85; serves on grand 
jury, 89; his trip down the Mississippi, 
89-90; secures articles for THz Cxen- 
TuRY, 90, ““The Voyage of the Mark 
Twain,’ 90,106; a born journalist, 90; 
at New Orleans with Cable, 93-100; 
draws catastrophe which does not take 
place, 94; death of mother, 99; does the 
Carnival for Harpzr’s WEEKLY, 99; in 
Tuscany with Howells, 1oo-102, 120; 
worked for love of his profession, tor, 
102; old Philadelphia drawings, 102; 
at Union and Confederate Reunions at 
Fredericksburg and the Wilderness, 105 ; 
on present condition of America and 
the Americans, 105, 106; leaves studio, 
106; voyage to Europe, 106; in London, 
106, 107; in Paris, 107; on the way to 
Florence, 107; in Florence, 107-119, 
125; not liked by Howells, 107, 108; 
takes a lesson in Italian, 109; barely es- 
capes suffocation, 109, 110; receives 
commission from Hamerton, 117, 182; 
made Fellow of the Royal Society of 
Painter Etchers, 118; at Siena,120, 123; 
at Lucca, Pisa, and Pistoia, 123, 124; 
at Perugia, Assisi, and Urbino, 126-129; 


369 


at Rimini, 129; return to Florence, 129; 
Dalmatian illustrations, 129; at Barga, 
130-134; at San Gimignano, 135-139; 
at Venice, 140-145; returns to London 
and meets Sir Edmund Gosse, 147; at 
Venice and Paris with Gosse, 147, 148; 
illustrates article on Fitz-William Mu- 
seum, 148; interview with Andrew 
Lang, 148; at Edinburgh, 150; takes to 
cycling, 150; article From Coventry 
To CHEsTER ON WHEELS, 150; enters tri- 
cycle race, 150; returns to America, 
150; married, 153; returns to Europe, 
153; in London, 153, 157; in Rome, 157, 
158; his power of determining direc- 
tion, 157; A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE, 
157; Two Piterims’ Procress, 157; 
draws English cathedrals, 158; settles 
in London, 158; in lodgings at 36 Bed- 
ford Place, 159, 160; contributor of Tux 
Srar, 160; witnesses meeting and riot 
in Trafalgar Square, 162; in Bucking- 
ham Street, 162; at Adelphi Terrace, 
162-168; various quarters of, in Lon- 
don, 168; on the Continent, 168; death 
of father, 168; society of, in London, 
168, 169; as regards illustrating given 
texts, 170, 172; does English cathedrals 
170-181; at Winchester, 172; at Salis- 
bury, 172-176; at Lincoln, 176; at 
York, 176, 179; OM perspective, 179; 
assisted by Mallows, 179, 180; at Dur- 
ham, 179; at Ely, 180; at Wells, 181; 
at Canterbury, 181; his Sadne journey, 
182-190; illustrates article by De Vinne 
on Plantin Museum, 183, 247; edits 
Stevenson’s Davos illustrations, 183; 
arrested as spy, 186, 311-318, 332-334; 
tries to become a war correspondent, 
190; does the London City Comp- 
anies, 192; invited to City Guild 
dinners, 196-202; member of The Art 
Workers’ Guild, 202; member of the 
Johnson Club, 202; his drawings of 
French cathedrals, 203-206; in Pro- 
vence, 204, 313, 314; drawn by Whis- 
tler and made into chimera by Beards- 
ley, 204; has cholera at Arles, 206; has 
malaria at Madrid, 210; ten years spent 
in drawing cathedrals, 210; adventure 
with British matron, 210; fate of draw- 
ings of cathedrals, 212; connection with 
Tue Yettow Book, 213, 214; contrib- 
utes to Tue Savoy, 215; first meeting 
with Beardsley, 215; writes article on 
Beardsley for Taz Srup1o, 216; in Paris 
with Beardsley, 216, 217, 220; made 
into gargoyle by Beardsley, 216; in 
Beardsley’s illness, 221; last letter from 
Beardsley, 221; starts for Russia on 
worthless passport, 224; at Brody, 224, 
227; on the train from Brody to Kiev, 
227; at Kiev, 227-229; sees the living 
death, 227, 228; arrested and detained 


o7e 


PENNELL, JoszPH, (continued). 

at Berditchev, 230-235; gets out of 
Russia, 235; Berditchev drawings, 235; 
his Tue Jew at Home, 236; the people 
of Berditchev angered at, 236; his ad- 
miration for Whistler, 237, 238; first 
meeting with Whistler, 238; makes 
Whistler known, 240, 241; works with 
Whistler in Paris, 242; Whistler's litho- 
graphs of, 242; Whistler wrote intro- 
duction to his lithographs, 246; wants 
to be art editor, 247; assists at birth of 
London Dairy Grapuic, 250; invents 
method of newspaper illustration, 250, 
252, 255; first meeting with Henry 
James, 258; illustrates A Lirrtz Tour 
In France, 260, 264, 265; hates the 
theatre, 260, 261; fails to make draw- 
ings for Faust, 260, 261; illustrates 
London Music Halls and Barnum’s 
circus, 260; does series of books with 
James, 264; reminiscences of James, 
264; at Bayreuth, 265; sees Parsirat, 
265; sees play by Langdon Mitchell in 
London, 266; in Tuscany with Maurice 
Hewlett, 268-279; Pisa, Lucca, and San 
Gimignano revisited by, 269, 271; his 
Tue Roan 1n Tuscany, 269; finds Hew- 
lett’s books unreadable, 269, 278; at 
Volterra, 272; Siena revisited by, 272; 
at Monte Oliveto, 275; in Florence 
again, 276; Hewlett as seen’ by, 278; 
works of, in the Uffizi, 279; with Mar- 
ion Crawford in Venice, 280-287; does 
scenes connected with King Edward’s 
death and funeral, 290-299; does King 
George’s coronation, 300-310; on being 
arrested as spy, 311; drawing from 
memory, 311,312; sets the fashion of 
issuing drawings without text, 316; 
makes drawings of Panama Canal, 319; 
designs and draws San Francisco Exhi- 
bition, 319; goes to Greece, 319; in 
Germany just before the World War, 
325, 326; in London at the outbreak of 
the war, 327, 328; sees war work in 
three countries, 329-331; at aeroplane 
factory at Farnham, England, 331, 332; 
in British munition factories, 332-336; 
his War Work IN ENGLAND, 336, 338; 
his drawings exhibited in Guild Hall, 
London,and elsewhere in Great Britain, 
336-338; given lunch at the Mansion 
House by the Lord Mayor of London, 
338; invited to France, 340; crushed by 
the war, 340, 341; goes to France, 341- 
343; refuses to go to Verdun, 342-345; 
returns to England, 345; returns to 
France and goes to Verdun, 346, 347; 
sleeps in the Citadel and joins the mess, 
347, 348; adventures of, in Verdun, 
348-351; returns to Paris, 351; his sec- 
ond visit to the front, 351, 352; sees 
American army in Paris, 352, 353; stays 


THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


a week in Paris, 353;returns to America, 
354-357; Other stories he could tell, 
358; at home, 361. 

Pennetz, Mrs. Josepa (Exizasetu Ros- 
ins), her Nicuts, 157, 158; article of, 
in Tur Ariantic, 165; her To Gypsy- 
LAND, 168; her French CATHEDRALS, 
206; method of riding bicycle, 265; 
invited to France, 340. 

PENNELL, Larxin, father of Joseph, 6; 
teaches Joseph to read and to do water 
coloring, 10; death, 168. 

PENNELL, Mary, aunt of Joseph, r. 

PENNELL, Natuan, uncleof Joseph, 4, 10. 

PENNELL, S1r RoBeErt, I. 

PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF Finz Arts, 
“‘a company of gentlemen,’’ 20; exhi- 
bition of, 30; Pennell refused admit- 
tance to, 36; entrance examination of, 
36, tuition free, 36; Pennell admitted 
to, 47, 48; professors at, 49-52; life ar, 
52, 53; advent of the nigger at, 53, 54. 

PENNSYLVANIA Historica Society, Pen- 
nell illustrates for journal of, 54, 57. 

PENNSYLVANIA ScHOOL oF INDUSTRIAL 
Arr, Pennell a pupil in, 38, 43, 44, 47; 
Pennell expelled from, 47, 48. 

Pericurux, drawings made by Pennell 
at, 204. 

PERsHING, GENERAL JOHN, at Paris, 353. 

Peruaia, 126. 

Perrrsoroucy, England, 176. 

PuILaDELPHIA, snobbishness, 4; treat- 
ment of old houses in, 4; boundaries of, 
6; hydrants, 9; Dispensary, 9; cries, 9; 
tea, 10; architectural vandalism in, 
10, 18; 72; 74; 84; English houses and 
streets in, 77. 

PHILADELPHIA AND READING CoaL AND 
Tron Company, Pennell begins business 
with, 38. 

PHOTOENGRAVING, 78, 105. 

Pickerinc, Evetyn(Mrs. Dz Morcan), 
in Italy, 126. 

Pisa, Howells and Pennell at, 123; re- 
visited, 269. 

Pisrora, 123, 124. 

Pratt, Cuaruzs A., refuses offer of Tue 
Century, 1o1;withPennellinParis,107. 

Pray IN PRovENCcE, 206. 

Popwo.oczysKa, 235. 

Por, E. A., scheme for edition of, 60. 

Porters, drawings made by Pennell at, 
204. 

Ponp, Major, 96. 

PonTAILer, the voyagers at, 186. 

Ponte Veccnio, Florence, etching, 117. 

Poors, H.R., rents studio with Pennell, 
65; his compositions manufactured, 66; 
illustrates article by T. A. Janvier, 68; 
elected Associate of the National Acad- 
emy, 69; Pennell leaves studio of, 106. 

Porr, Cotongt, cycling with, 150. 

Portroui0, THE, 117, 136, 140, 182. 


Portraits, those of the past and those of 
the present day contrasted, 14. 

Powext, Major, his discovery of the 
Yellowstone Geysers and the Grand 
Canyon, 82, 83. 

Pre-RaPHAELITES, 169, 172. 

Preston, Harriet Waters, travels with 
Pennell in Dalmatia, 129; articles of, 
129; on Provence, 314. 

PRINTING, 145. 

Prizes curse of American art, 26, 37, 
102. 

Provence, drawings made by Pennell 
in; 2Od,g13 5 3049 

Pusuic Dinners, in America, 200. 

Pusuisuers, in England and in America, 
162. 

Puvis pz Cuavanngs, asks Beardsley to 
his studio, 220. 

Pyrz, Howarp, illustrator, 21, 39, 57; 
his Dunker drawings, 66; in Taz Czn- 
tury Office, 88, 89. 


Quakers. See Frignps. 


RaPHAEL, 126, 129, 

Raven-Hitt, L., makes drawings for 
Daity GRAPHIC, 250. 

Rei, WHITELAW, 309. 

Remmuart, C. S., illustrator and painter, 
34, 57- 

REMBRANDT, how far he was accurate in 
local matters, 172. 

RenovarD, Paut, 350. 

Reppiigr, AGNEs, essayist, 10. 

Restoration, of churches, 204. 

Ruemms, drawings made by Pennell at, 
206. 

Ruoaps, Docror James, president of 
trustees of Bryn Mawr College, warns 
Pennell of difficulties attending success 
in art, 39. 

Riccr, Docror, director of the Uffizi, 279. 

Ricnarps, WILLIAM T., artist, 20; draw- 
ing master of Pennell, 29. 

Ricumonp, fall of, 12; Libby Prison at, 
81. 

Ricumonp, Sir W. B., his portrait of 
Andrew Lang, 148; his portrait of 
Canon Barnett, 148. 

Rico, D. Martin, etchings of, 46; tech- 
nique of, 57; praises Pennell’s work, 78; 
influence on Pennell, 179. 

Rimini, 129. 

Rircuiz, Lapy, at Paris, 148. 

Roap In Tuscany, THE, 268-279. 

Roserts, Lorp, at rehearsal for King 
George's coronation, 305. 

Rosrns, Epwarp, nephew of Leland, 72. 

Rosins, Ex1zaBeTH, Pennell introduced to 
71-72; articles by, 102; married to Pen- 
nell, 153. See also PENNELL, Mrs. JosEpx. 

Rocrrs, W. A., responsible for story 
concerning Abbey 172. 


a < 


re a Ss Se 


INDEX 


Roosgvert, Tueopore, at King Ed- 
ward’s funeral, 296. 

Ropss, Joszpx, drawing master, 28. 

Ross, Rosert, biographer of Oscar 
Wilde, brings Pennell and Beardsley 
together, 215, 216. 

Rouen, drawings made by Pennell at, 
206; adventure with a British matron 
at, 210. 

Ruskin, Joun, Mopern Parnters, 
bought by Pennell, 30; his descriptions, 
74; fails to answer letter of Pennell, 
Migs 182. 

Russta, 168; Jews of, 222, 223; Pennell 
starts for,224;at Kiev,227-229; theliv- 
ing death seen at Kiev, 227, 228; Pen- 
nell detained in Berditchev, 230-235; 
the police of, 236. 


St. ANDREWS, 150. 

Sr. BarTHOLOMEW, Cuurcu or, London, 
191, 192. 

Sr. Cross, near Winchester, England, 172. 

Sr. Gaupens, Aucustus, 58. 

Sr. Gitxes, drawings made by Pennell 
at, 204. 

Sr. Jean DE Losng, 186. 

Sr. Nicuoxas, article on Barnum’s circus 
in, 260. 

Sr. QuENTIN, 352. 

Satis, his Caat Norr pictures, 210. 

Saispury, England, 172-176. 

SaLMaGuNDI Cvs, 62. 

Sanpys, Freperick, at Pennell’s rooms 
in London, 169. 

San Francisco, design of Exhibition 
at, 319. 

San Gimicnano, visited by Pennell, 
135-139; revisited, 271. 

San Giovanni D’ Asso, 275, 276. 

San Quirico, 276. 

Sa6neg, the, 189, 190. 

Saénz, Tue, A Summer Voyace, 184, 
189. 

SarGeEntT, J. S., anecdote of, 38; at Pen- 
nell’s rooms in London, 169, 264. 

Sartatn, Emity, art editor of Our Con- 
TINENT, 102. 

Saturpay Review, Tue, 162. 

Sauter, Prorrssor Grores, his studio, 
236. 

Savoy, Tue, 215. 

ScHoots, source of standardization, 23. 

Scuwas, C. M., anecdotes of, 43, 44. 

Scripner’s Macazinz, illustrated monthly, 
58; drawings by Pennell in, 59, 64; fails 
to answer letter of Pennell, 235. See 
also Century, THe. 

SzeLey, Ricumonp, publisher, 165. 

Sggteys, the, publishers of A CanrEr- 
BURY PILGRIMAGE, 175. 

SENEFELDER Cus, 169. 

Seven Aczs or Man, Tug, illustrated by 
Pennell, 72. 


Saarp, Witt1aM (Fiona McLzop), at 
Florence, 110; shipwrecked in a boat, 
118; at Paris, 147. 

SHaw, GzeorGE BERNARD, sees Pennell in 
London, 159, 160; reads Canpipa, 160; 
contributor to Tuer Srar, 160; his art 
knowledge, 160; at Trafalgar Square 
meeting, 162; on THe Saturpay ReE- 
view, 162; his German cook, 165; 
offended by Pennell, 166; meetings 
with, in France, 206; at Pennell’s rooms 
in London, 264. 

Suerrietp, England, in war times, 334, 
335- 

SHomMakER, Bos, 26. 

SHorTER, CLEMENT K., 160; editor of 
IzLustrateD Lonpon News, 235. 

Sickert, W., artist, at Pennell’s rooms in 
London, 168; and Whistler, 240, 241, 
246. 

SIENA, 120-123, 272. 

Sxetcu Crus, Pennell made member of, 
69; anecdotes of, 69; the house, 69, 70. 

Sxinne_rs, the, London Guild, 196. 

Smeptey, W. T., illustrator, 21, 39. 

SmirH, Bay, 24, 139. 

SmitH, Francis Hopkinson, in London, 
153; in Venice, 282, 286; anecdote of, 
286. 

Smita, Roswett, president of Tur Cen- 
TurRY, 89. 

Society or Intustrators, birth of, 169. 

Sorssons, 206, 210, 345. 

Spain, cathedrals of, drawn by Pennell, 
210. 

Spanish Art, 46, 58. 

STANDARDIZATION, result of education, 
2224. 

Srar, Tue, the editors and the contrib- 
utors, 160. 

“STATE IN SCHUYLKILL,”’ 89. 

Srationers, the, London Guild, 192, 
196. 

SrrEvens, GrorGE, editor, 168. 

Srenton, Logan house at, 36; view of, 
Pennell’s first etching, 4o. 

Srevenson, R. A. M., in Paris, 147, 216, 
217; in London, 168; reminiscences of, 
238; helps make Whistler known, 240, 
241; Tae Devits or Norre Damg, 240, 
242. 

Stevenson, R. L., his Davos illustra- 
tions edited by Pennell, 183; unable to 
make Sadéne voyage, 183. 

Srimrman, WiLL1AM, critic and corres- 
pondent, at Florence, 110, 117; Pennell 
does article on Villa Boccaccio with, 
118; criticizes Pennell’s etchings, 118. 

Stoker, Bram, 260, 261. 

Strong, Sir Benjamin, photographer, at 
King George’s coronation, 302. 

Sronez, Freperick, librarian of Pennsyl- 
vania Historical Society, 54. 

Sronor, MonsiGnor, 278. 


Sue 


Srupio, THE, 215, 216. 

SUFFRAGETTES, 165. 

Sutiivan, E. J., at Pennell’s rooms in 
London, 168; produced by Tux Burrer- 
FLY, 214; makes drawings for Dairy 
Grapuic, 250; at King George’s coro- 
nation, 302, 310. 

SusQUEHANNA, wooden bridge over, 78, 
79- 

Symons, Artuur, poet and critic, 160; 
and Tue Savoy, 215. 


Tapema, Sir L. Atma, remark of, on 
Pennell, 158; influence on Pennell, 179. 

TARASCON, 313, 314. 

Taytor, Frank H., correspondent of 
Tue Dairy GRrapuic, 37. 

TEACHERS, 22-26. 

Tera SiGn, 166. 

Terry, ELLEN, 160; anecdotes of, 261. 

Tuautow, Frirz, anecdote of, 80. 

Tuomas, W. L., of the Dairy Grapuic, 
250. 

Tuurston, Tempers, at Adelphi Terrace, 
162, 264. 

Tie Cxus, Tue, 189. 

Times, THz Lonpon. See Lonpon Tims. 

Times, New York, Pennell’s scheme of 
illustration adopted by, 255. 

Trr-Brts, 215. 

Toutovsez, drawings made by Pennell at, 
204. 

TRAFALGAR SQUARE, Meeting and riot 
of, 162. 

TRANSYLVANIA, Visited by Pennell, 168, 
223; Jews in, 223. 

Triptets, the, 72. 

Turcex, JupGcz, editor of Our Conti- 
NENT, 102. 

Turner, J. M. W., 54. 

Tuscany, with Howells in, 100-102, 
120; with Maurice Hewlett in, 120, 
268-279. 

Tuxen, Danish Court PainTER, 302, 
304. 

Twain, Mark, joke played on, 96; and 
Mrs. Pennell, 265. 

Two Piterims’ Procrsss, 157. 


Unirep Srartzs, Pennell’s view of, 165, 
190; devolution, degeneracy, and decay 
10525 5 < 

Unwin, Fisuer, brings Pennell and Egan 
together, 62; with Pennell in London 
and Paris, 162; at Canterbury, 181; sug- 
gests drawing the London City Com- 
panies, 191. 

Ursino, commission to illustrate, 107; 
visited by Pennell, 126-129; illustra- 
tions of, in Taz MaGazinx or Art, 129. 


Van Dyxg, Joun, as art critic, 260; does 
Tue New New Yorx with Pennell, 316. 
Van Goa, painter, 204. 


37? 


Van Renssetazr, Mrs., article of, on 
American Etchers, 102; articleson Eng- 
lish Cathedrals, 158, 170. 

Vepprr, Exmu, at Rome, 157, 158; 
drawing of, 157; painting angels, 282, 
285. 

Venice, work on, for Hamerton, 117, 
182; visited by Pennell, 140-145 ; visited 
a second time by Pennell with Marion 
Crawford, 280-287. 

VERDUN, 190, 344, 345; on the way to, 
346, 347; scenes in, in war time, 347-351. 

VeRDuN-suR-Douss, 186. 

Vicrorta, QuEEN, 290. 

VIENNA, JEWS AT, 223. 

VrerGe, Danint, 57. 

Viotet-te-Duc, his restorations, 204. 

VirGIL, 74. 

VisiT1NG THE Gypstgs, illustrated by Pen- 
nell, 72. 

VOLTERRA, 134, 272; the road to, 271. 

“Voyace or THE Marx Twain, Tue,” 
go, 106. 


Wacner, Ricnarp, at Venice, 282. 

Wacner, Frau, 265. 

Waker, C, Howarp, 109. 

Watxtey, A. B., contributor to Tue 
Srar, 160. 

Watwace, ANNIE, 5. 

Watton, Isaac, member of Ironmongers’ 
Guild, 196. 

WaNAMAKER, JOHN, 6. 

Warp, Mrs. Humpury, and dismis- 
sal of Beardsley from editorship of Tux 
Yettow Book, 214; thought Pennell 
should accept French invitation to go 
to France, 340. 

War Work in England, 329-339. 

War Work IN ENGLAND, 336, 338. 

Watson, Sir WILLIAM, protests against 
Tue YeLttow Boox said to have come 
from, 214. 





ROAR: 


THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR 


Way, Tom R., Halls of London litho- 
graphed by, 197. 

Wess, Sir Aston, 192. 

Wepmorg, Sir Frepericx, author and 
art Critic, 240. 

Wextts, England, 18x. 

Wetts, H. G., writes Introduction to 
the Catalogue of Pennell’s Exhibitions 
of English War Work, 336, 338. 

Wetsu, Hersert, artist, 69. 

West, Benjamin, of the Royal Academy, 
38, 39. 

Westminster Apsey, on the occasion of 
King George's coronation, 300-310. 

Wesrminster Hatt, on occasion of King 
Edward's funeral, 290-298. 

Westtown Boarpine Scxoot, 19. 

Wurete, Mr., the Curator, at Academy 
of Fine Arts, 49, 50. 

Wuistter, J. McN., how he learned Eng- 
lish, 21; paintings of, 34; influence on 
Pennell, 77; and the crowd, 108; with 
Pennell in London, 168, 169; visits 
Pennell on tower of Notre Dame, 204; 
goes to Rouen, 210; and Beardsley, 217, 
220, 221; the greatest artist of his day, 
237; hated hypocrisy, 238; Pennell’s 
first meeting with, 238; anecdotes of, 
238, 240-244; Tue Lire of, 238, 242; 
made known by Pennell and Stevenson, 
240, 241; his triumph, 240; Pennell 
works with, in Paris, 242; his wife's 
illness and death, 242; ‘‘The Russian 
Schube,’’ 242; his little journeys, 242, 
244; his illustrations, 244, 246; books 
of, 246; wrote Introduction to Pen- 
nell’s lithographs, 246; makes draw- 
ings of Damty Grapuic, 250. 

Wurtz, Grzason, editor of Tar Srupio, 
215. 

Waurrte, SranrorD, architect, 58. 

Wuirte, Dr. Witte, 264. 


Wuirman, Watt, remembrances of, 71, 
72, 74; book on, illustrated by Pennell, 
74, 182. 

Wuitney, J. H. E., wood engraver, 58. 

Witpg, Oscar, in America, 89-90; his 
Satomeg illustrated by Beardsley, 215; 
sale of his collection, 261, 264. 

Witperness, Tue, Union and Confeder- 
ate Reunion, 105, 

WittiaMs, Francis Howarp, 74. 

Witson, Epcar, founder of Taz But- 
TERELY, 214. 

Wimsusu, J. L., draughtsman, 49, 50. 

Wincuester, ENGLAND, 172. 

WircMan, Brake, 261. 

Wister, Cuaruzs, gives Pennell his first 
commission, 54. 

WistER, Owen, 28. 

Wotr, Henry, wood engraver, 58. 

Wonper or Work, 43, 62, 330. 

Woop Encravina, 58, 85, 102. 

Woop, Gzorcs B., artist, 20; gives Pen- 
nell letter to A. W. Drake, 61. 

Wootwicu ArsENAL, 336. 

Worxmen, ruined by War Work, 338, 
339. 


Wortp War, Tue, outbreak of, 324— 


328; its effects in France, 341-345; 
never to be described or illustrated, 


357- 


Yxsttow Book, Tue, birth of, 213-214; 
immediately successful, 214; Beardsley 
dismissed as editor, 214, 215; death of, 
Se 

Yettowstone Geysers, discovery of, 
82, 83. 

York, England, 176, 179. 

Yorktown, 82. 


ZANGWILL, i 224. 
Zunis, at Washington, 83, 84. 


Ta 


FROM MONOCHROME OIL PAINTING 1894 * ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN WASHINGTON : 
IRVING'S ALHAMBRA WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MRS. E. R. PENNELL - MACMILLAN & CO. 


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